Seduced by a Rogue (24 page)

“My lord, by my troth, you would do better to hear me out,” Rob said, fighting back his rising temper.

“You’ve nowt to say that I want to hear. When you see your thieving brother, tell him you had no better luck than he did in
persuading me or any other Annandale laird to hand over our gelt to the Maxwells of Nithsdale.”

“But I
can
help you find her!”

“Nay, then, ye cannot! Now, go. I dinna want ye finding my Mairi any more than I wanted your gallous friend Will Jardine sniffing
round her sister. Ye’ll have heard of that event, too, I shouldn’t wonder, belike from the same devious source.”

Any thought Rob had had of ending Will’s thirst for the lady Fiona vanished.

But as he commanded himself yet again to ignore his host’s understandable ire and keep to his own purpose, Dunwythie abruptly
left the room, shouting for his porter to show the unwelcome visitor out.

The next time Mairi awoke it was to pale light, a thunder of waves below, a lower rumble near at hand, and a soft paw patting
her chin. She was stiff, damp, cold, and sore. But at least she could be nearly sure now that she would not drown.

“Cold comfort,” she murmured to the purring kitten. “I’ll wager you’re hungry and thirsty, just as I am. And you probably
also wish you had eaten more supper than you did, and drunk more water. In troth, I crave a drink much more than I want food.
All that water down below and none for drinking.”

The kitten made a chirping sound but otherwise went on purring.

Wondering if the tide might be lower than it had been before, Mairi set the kitten on its feet, picked up her skirts, and
made her way down the stairs again.

She saw as soon as she emerged from the spiral part of the stairway that the sea was still making its presence much felt.
The wharf rose only inches above the water, with occasional surges washing over it. The gray light entering the cavern indicated
either that the sun had dipped behind the western cliffs already or that the sky had grown overcast again. She sighed. It
did not matter much which one it was.

With no reason to go down to the wharf, had it even been safe, she scooped up the kitten, which had followed her, and carried
it dejectedly back upstairs.

Rob saw as he and his oarsman rode back into Annan town that it might already be too late to return on the ebbing tide. It
would likely leave them aground before they reached the river Nith. With the tides at their extreme as they were, the receding
sea would leave only sand and mud for twenty miles.

He would, he decided, discuss the problem with Jake Elliot.

Although Rob cursed Dunwythie for his obstinacy, he soon realized the man’s reaction had surprised him less than he had thought
such behavior would. His thoughts shifted next to Mairi in half-grudging, half-admiring acknowledgment that she had been right
about her father. She would have good reason to gloat, if gloating were in her nature.

She would not gloat, though. Indeed, he had a feeling that whatever she had said about her father, and no matter how deeply
she had believed he would refuse to submit, she would be deeply disappointed to learn that she was right.

They were still some distance from the galley when he realized that, as he had been thinking of her, a prickling unease had
begun to creep through him.

Dismissing it, he told himself it was no more than his irritation with himself colliding with his fury at Dunwythie’s utter
failure to protect his precious daughter.

But with his next breath, he said to his companion, “Walk faster, lad.”

Waking from a doze in pitch blackness and abject terror, Mairi heard the sound of lapping water so near that she knew the
sea was creeping closer. She was in what she had decided was the more comfortable of the two corners near the door.

The kitten had been in her lap but was not there now.

She had no idea how long she had slept. But surely, she thought, this was the same incoming tide she had heard crashing about
below her for a long hour or two before falling asleep. The same thunderous noises that had accompanied its surging in would
surely have awakened her in its ebb.

Wanting to know the worst, she shifted position enough to feel carefully for the step below the one on which she sat.

Finding it cold but still dry, or as dry as it ever was, she bent sharply forward to feel below it and nearly lost her balance.
But the next step was dry, too. Below it, the next was damp. Moving one foot to it, she leaned forward again, expecting to
find the sea with her fingertips but finding only the damp, shivering kitten.

As she began to straighten with it trembling in her hands, it squirmed and dug claws into her bodice, trying to climb higher.

Water surged then, soaking Mairi’s feet and the hem of her gown. Snatching her skirts up, she scrambled blindly up the steps
and reached her corner, gasping.

Forcing herself to concentrate on calming Tiggie, whose claws still hooked tight in her bodice, she wondered if the sea just
might swallow them after all.

The sun dipped below the horizon as the galley passed Southerness Point a mile west of the river Nith’s outflow.

Although Jake Elliot had expressed skepticism about Rob’s decision to sail with what remained of the ebb tide, they had made
it far enough, barely, to clear the sands. They took shelter as the tide turned by beaching the galley in an inlet northeast
of the point, where they waited out the hours of turbulent inflow.

They had rested and eaten their supper. But they still had nearly five hours before they would enter Kirkcudbright Bay.

The weather had begun to concern Rob. The wind was blowing straight toward them from the open sea, forcing them to furl their
sail and row hard to keep a westward heading. Jake suggested once that they make for shore, but his laird’s curt reply made
it clear that a second such suggestion would be unwise.

Rob would brook no delay now that he could avoid. In the west, clouds that had provided a spectacular sunset billowed black,
and he already had seen a few flashes of lightning. But the storm remained distant, and the moon had come up.

Unless the storm fell upon them with unexpected swiftness and ferocity, he would stay on the water. The wind had blown icily
from the north earlier, had shifted often, and would shift again as the storm came nearer.

He was aching to reach Trailinghail.

In truth, though, he knew it was not Trailinghail he ached to see but Mairi. He felt himself stir just thinking about her,
and wondered what demon possessed Dunwythie that he had not instantly agreed to anything that would bring her home.

But he knew that that thought was no more complete than the one before it had been, because while he condemned Dunwythie for
rejecting the chance to reclaim her, he had to admit lurking admiration for the man’s loyalty to his own people and to the
stewartry of Annandale.

“Laird?” Gibby’s tone was both wary and determined. “Jake Elliot says them clouds yonder be a great storm a-brewing.”

“We’ll be home before it reaches us,” Rob said reassuringly.

“Good then,” Gib said, and returned to his place.

Rob hoped his prediction was right. He wished the contrary wind would shift round behind them and drive them to Trailinghail
as fast as the early tide had carried them from it. The irritating sense of unease was still with him and growing stronger.
He could not shake the feeling now that it had to do with Mairi.

During the next hours, the fickle wind shifted several more times in front of the oncoming storm, more than once threatening
to blow them to the English coast before its strength began at last to wane.

The ebbing tide, however slow, and the dropping wind made it easier to maintain a steady pace and stay closer to the coast
as they neared Kirkcudbright Bay. From time to time, the bright moon still peeked through the gathering clouds.

As the galley entered the bay, Rob saw that the water was much too low for them to use the sea entrance. The moon vanished
as he ordered his men to row for the beach below Senwick. But he could still make out the cliffs and the kirk tower lantern.

The stormy black clouds had lowered and were leaking rain in huge drops that spattered on the wood deck of the galley and
on the oarsmen. Although the wind had picked up again, blowing hard from the west, the cliffs on the western side of the bay
blunted much of its force.

Rob kept the sail up until the last minute, when two lads brought it down smartly in flapping protest as he shouted for the
oarsmen to raise their blades. Jake Elliot disconnected the steerboard, and the galley glided neatly onto the beach.

Pulling their oars inboard, the men leaped out and hauled the boat high onto the beach, burying its anchors under sand and
rock to keep it in place at least until they could attend to it properly.

“Look after the boat and the men, Jake,” Rob shouted. “Gib, you stay with Jake. I’m going on ahead.”

Dashing up the steep path, he ignored the increasingly noisy, driving rain as his thoughts rushed ahead to Trailinghail and
Mairi.

Soaked and bedraggled by the time he reached the tower, he ran nearly to the gate before men atop the wall recognized him
and shouted for others inside to open it. The wary expressions of the two men who did told him something was amiss.