The Adventurer (18 page)

For an hour or more, Calum sat and read through the pages. Her thoughts. Her feelings. Her innermost dreams. And while he didn’t come any closer to discovering
who
she really was, he certainly had an understanding of
what
she was made of deep inside.

She was vulnerable.

She was romantic.

She was intelligent.

She was uncertain.

She loved art and poetry, and was deeply,
deeply
devoted to her family, of whom he counted at least four sisters, a father and a mother, and two others named Agamemnon and Homer, who were probably some sort of pets.

She dreamed of more. She dreamed of love and excitement and adventure, but when it came time to play a part, she seemed to linger offstage, allowing the brighter brilliance of her sisters, most particularly the one named Bess, to shine instead. She had been the second daughter and so she felt she had somehow disappointed her parents for not having been born a son. So she stayed quietly out of the way, never causing worry or trouble. She lived her life across the pages of her journal, all while watching the rest of the world tumble on around her.

And she was willing to sacrifice her own happiness for the contentment of her parents by agreeing to wed a man she didn’t even know.

I received a letter today,
read one of the passages near the end of the book.
It comes from Mother and Papa. It promises to reveal the name of my future husband. I have not opened it, nor will I, until I am certain all hope for someone else is truly, truly gone.

She was a dreamer.

When he turned to the next page, something fell from inside, fluttering to the floor. He looked and found what appeared to be a folded letter, yet sealed. He picked it up, turned it over. Was this the letter she had written of? The one that was to contain her future husband’s name?

He look at its front. It was addressed simply to “Bella.”

Bella.

So that was her name. It described her perfectly—
beautiful
—suiting her far better than the invented Maris.

Calum set aside the journal and studied the letter closely, turning it front to back, front to back. The red wax seal held the impression of a crest. He looked at it closely and recognized the coronet of a duke.

He exhaled heavily, closing his eyes. She was not Lord Belcourt’s daughter.

But that information did not make him feel any better. It only made matters worse.

He shouldn’t open the letter, he knew. But at the same time, Calum couldn’t keep himself from holding the blade of his dirk over the candle beside him, and sliding it under the waxen seal to loosen it—loosen it, but not break it.

He had to know who she was. If her father was a duke—an English duke—they would have more trouble than they could possibly imagine. Calum needed to know what he was facing.

But in the back of his mind, a small part of him also needed to know the name of the man she was going to wed.

The heat of the blade pulled the seal cleanly away from the parchment.

Calum slowly unfolded the letter.

Dearest Bella,

Your father and I have spent the past months whilst you have been away considering quite a number of suitable candidates for your future husband. It had seemed so easy when your father was forever threatening Elizabeth with an arranged marriage, but in truth, it is the most difficult decision a parent can ever make. Your father especially had a terrible time of it. No one ever quite measured up for his Bella. However, just as we were preparing to concede defeat, the very perfect candidate appeared quite unexpectedly at our door. He had come, in fact, to call on you. Knowing the fondness you held in your heart as a young girl for him, I know you will be thrilled to learn that we have made arrangements for your marriage to Kentigern St. Clive. His father, the earl, has readily consented, particularly after your father offered rather many acres of the property adjoining his as part of your dowry. All that remains is your consent, dear Bella. Though we cannot think of a reason why you shouldn’t wish to wed him, we did insist on the condition of your full and willing agreement to the match, else all stipulations already agreed upon are null and void. You may tell us your answer when you arrive in Edinburgh, although I suspect I already know what it will be. We shall be there to meet you at Leith, dearest.

It was signed simply
Your Loving Mother,
giving Calum no further hint of who the family might be.

Calum stared at the name one more time.
Kentigern St. Clive.
A thoroughly noble, thoroughly Sassenach sort of name.

The perfect sort of name to marry the daughter of a duke.

Calum folded the letter. He heated the blade, softening the wax to once again seal it.

When he was finished, he stared down at the letter that looked just as it had moments before he’d opened it. He was filled with discontent, both at what he’d read and the fact that he’d done it so surreptitiously. He’d had no right to invade her privacy as he had. He’d stolen into her most personal thoughts by reading the pages of her journal, thoughts that most people rarely examined about themselves, let alone committed to paper. And then to make matters worse, he had read something even she didn’t yet know.

Needing to make some effort, however insignificant, to atone for what he’d done, Calum slipped the letter back into its place in the journal, closed the book, and placed it back inside her trunk.

He would read no further.

And he would try, try very hard to forget everything that he’d just read.

Even as he knew that would be impossible.

Just as impossible as it would be to forget her when she finally left.

It was nearly midnight when Isabella managed to slip away from the hall. Most of the men had dozed off, their ale tankards tipped precariously against their shirtfronts or dangling from motionless fingertips. Others had retired to the far corners of the room for cards and dicing.

After the dancing had finished and Mungo had played his last jig, she had sat with M’Cuick, discussing various ways of dressing a roast, until his eyes had grown heavy, and his lids had finally closed in defeat. She hadn’t the heart to wake him, even to send him off to his bed, so she’d left him, with his head at rest atop his beefy forearms, snoring softly as she’d tiptoed away.

Now in her chamber, Isabella took her sketching pad and chalks from her traveling valise and retreated to the chair that sat beside the hearth. Someone, she knew not who, had stoked a fire for her and it was burning sluggishly in the grate, throwing shades of amber and gold across the page. She was not yet ready for sleep, her thoughts too abuzz from the excitement of the evening.

It was an extraordinary thing. In the space of one evening, she had watched as two men had battled for her favor, she’d been kissed for the very first time in her life, and she had danced with more men than she could possibly keep count of. Danced and enjoyed herself immensely.

But it wasn’t just that one evening. It had been ever since the
Adventurer
had come sailing out of the mists. At a time when she should have been fearing for her life, she had instead felt truly, genuinely alive. It was a heady, addicting thing, this feeling, and she suddenly understood why her sister had always done so many outrageous things.

Elizabeth must have known what it was to feel this same way. It was as if the very world around her were suddenly splashed with vibrant, radiant color. There was an element of fear, yes, but it only heightened the even more palpable element of excitement. Things felt differently, smelled differently, even tasted differently. Every sense, it seemed, was sparked with a new and brilliant fire. Isabella could only imagine that once she’d experienced it, this magic, Elizabeth had been reluctant to let it go, so she had just done more and more outrageous things in an effort to recapture that thrill, that giddy sense of invincibility.

Isabella had just done the same thing, only it had taken her twenty years longer to discover it. Now, however, she found herself just as reluctant to let it go.

She had been absently sketching while she’d been thinking and as she pulled the chalk away from the page, Isabella suddenly found herself looking down onto the image of Calum Mackay. Though roughly sketched, there was no mistaking those eyes, that clandestine stare, the mouth that had so completely overwhelmed hers. She rubbed a fingertip along the curve of his lip. She had never known what it was to have a man look at her the way he had, kiss her, want her. When he had taken her into his arms, Isabella had felt her heartbeat skip, had sucked in a breath, and had steeled herself for what she had hoped would not be too frightening an experience.

She had never been kissed by a man before. She hadn’t known what to expect. She could never have been more mistaken.

The only frightening part of it had been when he’d pulled away. Deep down she hadn’t wanted him to. And if he hadn’t ended it when he had, she would have kept on kissing him all night.

She didn’t know when Calum had gone from the hall. She’d been so busy dancing with her swift succession of partners, it had been some time before she’d looked, only to see him gone. She’d been disappointed. She’d wondered why he’d left. Had he not felt what she had when they’d kissed?

And then she scoffed at herself for even thinking such a thing. Calum Mackay had doubtless kissed many girls before her, probably kissed them all in the same way. She was foolish and naïve to think that it should have meant to him anything close to what it had meant to her.

As she sat there with the flickering light of the fire dancing across the image of his face, Isabella enhanced the image, scuffing in his shadow of beard, straightening the slope of his nose. She refined the image until it looked as close to Calum as possible. And then she went over it with pen and ink, making it permanent so that when she told her granddaughters about this night—and that kiss—she could show them the image of the man who had given it to her.

Their kiss may not have meant anything to Calum Mackay. But Calum Mackay had meant quite a lot to Isabella.

Because Calum Mackay had shown her what it was to live.

And Isabella would never forget him for that.

It was early the following morning, just after the break of day, when Calum found Bella sitting in the hall. She was alone, perched upon the window seat. She had a cup of tea balanced on her lap as she stared out at the sea glittering under the sun through the arched window.

She was the picture of loveliness. Her hair was drawn up loosely on her head with curls framing her face. The sun shone in behind her, framing her in brilliant soft light of gold. Yet even with the radiance of the day, her face was somehow dim. Just the set of her shoulders and the shadow in her eyes told of her mood: distant, withdrawn. She looked rather like a forlorn princess imprisoned in a tower, awaiting her knight errant to come and rescue her from the wicked villain.

To rescue her from
him.

Calum leaned against the doorway, crossed his arms loosely over his chest. “ ’Tis too fine a morn to be sitting in here all alone, lass. Why d’you no’ take a turn outside? We rarely get a day such as this and M’Cuick promises me the skies will hold fair all the day. He is never, ever wrong about these things.”

She turned, looked at him. “But I thought I wasn’t to leave the castle.”

Her voice was soft, timorous, as one would expect from any imprisoned unhappy young princess.

“Och, lass. I may be a pirate, but I’m no’ as heartless as all tha’. We’re surrounded by ten miles of empty moor. The nearest settlement is some fifteen miles distant, and tha’s wit’ knowing how to get there. E’en if you were of a mind to take flight, you’d no’ make it very far. There’s the wolves, the bogs, and aye, e’en the midges to contend wit’, too. The perils far outweigh any chances of success.” He readied to leave, pulling on his coat. “You’re free to wander at will. Just be sure to wear a cloak. The sunlight is deceptive, it is. ’Tis still a bite to the wind. And be certain to keep the castle in sight at all times. It is easy to get lost out on the moors.”

The dullness that had shadowed her eyes seemed to lighten as she considered the idea. She even smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Mackay.”

“Calum, lass. My name is Calum.”

She looked at him. “Calum.”

He liked the way his name sounded on her lips, liked it too much, perhaps.

He turned quickly to leave.

“Perhaps it is better that I stay here,” she said on an audible sigh, and more to herself, he suspected, than to him. “I wouldn’t know where to go, what to do. I’m really not the daring sort.”

Like Bess,
Calum thought, remembering the many passages he’d read in her journal the night before.

He turned back to the room. Her discontent with herself, and the fact that she wasn’t the “daring sort” was a matter she’d written about more than once. She’d all but canonized her sister for her misadventures, admiring her, envying her, while never once herself trying to break out of her self-imposed shell.

But perhaps, in the face of her flamboyant sister, she’d just never had the chance to.

“Would you ...” He hesitated, wondering if he should ask what he was about to ask—or just turn and walk away. “Would you like me to show you about the castle and grounds? Perhaps it would help you to feel a little less disconcerted if you were to acquaint yourself with the place more first.”

She looked at him, considering his offer, as uncertain as he no doubt. He half expected her to decline until finally, she smiled. “I think I would like that very much, yes. Thank you.”

She stood, taking a moment to put her skirts in order, smoothing down the folds of brocaded fabric over the bulk of her dress panniers. Nonsensical things, panniers, he thought. ’Twas like having as pair of fishing creels, bottom side up, one strapped to each hip. Intended to give an impression of elegance and grace, they really just made for rather a lot of maneuvering when a lass needed to get through a narrow doorway—when a lass needed to do much of anything really other than sit at a spinet or needlework frame, poised like an elegant figurine. They certainly weren’t suitable for traipsing about the Highlands.