The Adventurer (19 page)

And her shoes, he thought, taking in the cocked heel and narrow pointed toe. They looked torturous. No wonder most lasses took such tiny, mincing steps. If they didn’t, they’d end up tumbling headfirst, and their fishing creel panniers would end up slung around their necks instead of jutting out from their waists.

There wasn’t much elegance in that, now was there?

“You might want to consider a change into something simpler,” he suggested. “Have you anything a wee bit less ... eh, structural, perhaps?”

She laughed, a sweet and mirthful sound, and then lifted her hand as if to cover her mouth.

It was then he noticed her fingertips. They were colored nearly black.

What the devil had she been doing? Crawling about in the soot of the hearth?

“I’m afraid I’ve only a few gowns from which to choose,” she said, pulling his thoughts back.

“You’ve your trunks,” he finished. And then before she could say the opposite to it, “I had them taken to your room this morn.”

“You have?” Her face lit up. In fact the entire room seemed to have brightened.

“Aye. And it’s sorry I am that your things were taken from you as they were. ’Twas a grievous mistake.”

“Thank you, Calum.” She crossed the room, stopped, kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Thank you very much.”

Did she realize she had just kissed the man who had been responsible for having the trunks confiscated in the first place?

And did she realize that in doing so, she had just warmed the room by several noticeable degrees?

Calum stood and simply stared. It was all he could do.

She stopped, and turned at the door before leaving. “You’ll wait here while I go to change then?”

He nodded wordlessly, and she vanished through the door, leaving him blinking and mystified, as if he’d just been taken by a sudden burst of sunlight.

After she’d gone, Calum crossed the room to the window to look outside. M’Cuick had been right. It was a fine day, much too fine to be locked away inside these stone walls poring through books. Tonight he would start the search for Uilliam’s name. It wasn’t as if they could go after him immediately anyway. The
Adventurer
had just returned, and she would need to be checked thoroughly before they set out again. The hull needed careening, sails mending, decks needed to be swabbed, and bilges needed to be dried. Tonight would be soon enough for checking Lord Belcourt’s records. Calum thought of the other things he could be doing that morning, plans he could be preparing, decisions he could make, but somehow none of them seemed as appealing at that moment as walking about with her.

Out of custom, Calum checked the horizon for sign of any unfamiliar craft. It was a thing that had become a habit over the past year since he’d been at Castle Wrath. There was a part of him that wondered if the day would come when he would see a fleet of the whole Hanoverian navy approaching to arrest him and his crew. It was a possibility he had had to plan for; only a complacent fool didn’t prepare for every inevitability and it was only a matter of time before someone somehow recognized one of the men. And if that day ever came, Calum had decided long ago that he wouldn’t be one to flee, no matter if they sent in five hundred troops to take him. He would stand and he would face them, he would defend this place, and he would likely die—but he would die a Scotsman, not a prisoner of the counterfeit king, and certainly not an exile displaced in a foreign land.

When he looked down from the window, Calum noticed something sitting on the ledge, a sheet of parchment that had been turned facedown. Beside it lay a slender stick that looked like kindling wood charred on one end, obviously from the candle that sat yet burning beside it. Calum picked up the sheet, turned it over. There was a scene drawn upon it, the same scene he had just looked upon outside, the castle ruins, the rocky cliff, and the stretch of sea beyond.

It was no casual depiction, but an accomplished piece embellished with mood and texture and shading. Calum ran a finger lightly along the drawing’s edge, inadvertently smudging one corner. He lifted his hand and rubbed the blotch of dark ash away with his finger and his thumb. He remembered Bella’s fingers, how black they’d been.

So the lass was an artist.

It didn’t surprise him.

Bella returned a short time later, dressed in a simple sort of gown with full skirts that were unhooped, and a fitted bodice made of soft gray. The plainness of the gown suited her, and the color turned her eyes a stormier shade of blue, a lovely complement to her dark hair. Where most lasses preferred brightness and vibrant color, she favored the colors of nature, the shades of the sea ...

... of the merfolk.

Calum shook his head at the thought.

“Will this do?” she asked.

Calum turned. “Aye, lass. Very well.” In truth, she could wear a scrap of ragged woolen and still look lovely. “Are you ready then?”

They stopped in the kitchen to tell M’Cuick they’d be going about. Calum ignored the cook’s speculative glances and asked for a small basket with some bannocks, cheese, and fruit that they might take along with them. He didn’t know how long they’d be gone, or how far they would go, so he thought to prepare for any eventuality. He certainly wasn’t in any hurry to return.

They started out taking a turn about the castle courtyard. Calum explained what each of the ruined buildings had once been, trying to give her a picture with words of the great fortress of Castle Wrath. Rather than a simple polite nod, she listened to his every word, and asked questions—thoughtful, intelligent questions that showed her genuine interest in what he had to say.

Though he regretted having done it, in having read her journal, he found it easier to talk to her. He already knew the things that interested her and it was that trait he appealed to, her love of imagery, her sense of artistic beauty.

They came to the stables where Hamish stood just inside, seeing to his duties in feeding and watering the ponies and mucking the stalls. He beamed when he saw the lass.

“Good morning t’you, Miss Maris,” he said, doffing his straw hat.

It was quite obvious the lad had fallen for her.

“How do you do, Hamish?”

“Oh, fine. How can a man no’ be fine on a day as today?”

Calum grinned to himself at the lad calling himself a “man.”

“It is a fine day, is it not?” Bella said.

“Aye. The skies are clear and the wind is soft. Are you and the laird of a mind for a ride then?”

“A ride?” Her face immediately dimmed. “No. I do not ride.”

“Och,” Hamish hit himself on the forehead. “I should’ve thought of it myself. To be sure, you winna ken how to sit a horse, being of the merfolk as you are.”

Calum glanced at her.

The lass merely smiled and said to them both, “Yes. You are right.”

Minx.

“Perhaps it is time you learned to ride then, lass,” Calum said.

“Oh, no. Really, I—”

But he ignored her. “Fetch the Trakehner, aye, Hamish?”

“And one of the ponies for Miss Maris?”

“Nae. Just the stallion. This first time, she’ll ride with me.

Her eyes went wide as blue china saucers when Hamish led the glistening black beast outside the stables moments later. “You want me ... to ride him?”

“There’s naught to worry over, lass. He’s a well-mannered mount.”

“But he’s so ... big.”

Calum led her over to the horse while Hamish saddled him. “You just need to get a wee bit acquainted, is all.” He took her hand. Their eyes caught and held for a moment before Calum lifted her fingers slowly to the horse’s muzzle.

“Just give him a bit of a stroke and he’ll do anything you ask of him.”

Just like the rest of us ...

Calum watched as she tentatively ran her fingers over the horse’s cheek. The stallion lowered his head and nudged against her for more, nearly knocking her backward.

She laughed. In minutes, she had eased and was scratching him behind his pricked ears.

“We’ll be off then.”

Calum swung up and settled into the saddle.

“But I don’t even know how to get up on his—”

Calum tightened his knees and swept her up from the ground with one arm. In a moment she was sitting before him, her feet dangling over one side.

“Oh,” she said, looking at him, startled. “Goodness.”

Their faces were so close he had felt the soft rush of her breath against his cheek.

The horse danced a bit beneath them and she dug her fingers into Calum’s sleeve. Her face had paled. Her eyes were wild. She looked frightened half to death.

She really was afraid.

Certainly the daughter of a duke would have ridden a horse before?

“Easy, lass. I’m no’ going to let you fall. We’ll take it slowly. Now just hold to my arm and we’ll start it at a walk, aye?”

She looked as if she’d rather be anywhere, anywhere else on earth other than seated on that horse before him. Yet, after a second or two of consideration, she nodded.

Calum urged the horse away from the stables, keeping a tight rein on him. He could feel the tensing of the beast’s muscles beneath him, the barely contained prance in his step, and knew the horse was anxious to take off across the moors at a gallop. It was a thing Calum often did with him, to stretch the beast’s legs and soothe his own restless spirit as well, racing at breakneck speed along the soft sands of the shore with the wind ripping against his face and stinging his eyes to tears.

But not today.

They walked about the castle courtyard, letting the lass get used to the feel of the horse beneath her. After a while, Calum felt her begin to relax, and she finally eased back against him.

The soft scent of her hair, the gentle sway of her body against his, were a heady, potent combination, filling his thoughts with the memory of the kiss they had shared the night before, the way his body had responded to that kiss, like a starving man would hunger for the tiniest crumb.

It was craziness, he knew, to even allow himself to be in her company. She was the daughter of a duke. And she was already promised to another man, another man who, if her mother’s letter was any indication, she already had tender feelings for. If she had read that letter, knew she was betrothed to the esteemed Kentigern St. Clive, would she e’en deign to ride upon the horse with him now?

He should forget her while she was there, go on as he always had. But at the same time Calum just couldn’t seem to resist her. Perhaps it was because he knew in time she would go. She would leave and she would wed her Kentigern St. Clive, so why shouldn’t he enjoy what time he had with her?

He took her down the hillside, away from the castle. They trotted through the moor and cantered along the sea path, and she laughed, a full, throaty sound that warmed him despite the chill in the air.

Her hair brushed against his cheek soft as a silk ribbon when the wind blew. Her body melded to his and they moved as one with the movement of the horse. Slowly she let down her defenses, she lost that assumed mermaid persona and Calum began to see the Bella whose words he’d read in that journal emerging ... blossoming ... living.

She asked him about his childhood and he told her, not everything, but he told her about his father falling in battle, and how he’d been sent in fosterage to Fergus’s father. The hours passed quickly. He lost track of the time. He lost track of where they went. Somehow it didn’t surprise him when he looked up suddenly to find they had arrived at the small bay where he had come as a lad.

The lad who had been looking for his mermaid.

He pulled the horse to a stop and slid from the saddle, then reached for her waist to help her down.

She slid against him. He didn’t immediately let her go, but stood with his hands spanning her waist, his eyes drinking her in.

Even the wind seemed to have stilled.

“Calum ...” she said, and her voice held a nervous edge, as if she knew he wanted to kiss her.

But he didn’t give in to the temptation.

“Come, lass,” he said, taking her hand. “I want to show you something.”

He let the stallion graze on the
machair
while he led her down the path, straight to the stone where he used to sit and watch the placid bay.

“ ’Tis lovely,” she said, and he watched as she closed her eyes and turned her face to the sun. With her dark hair blowing in the breeze, she looked just like the mermaid he’d always imagined.

He wanted to tell her. He wanted to tell her how he had come there as a lad and had watched the water for her, his mermaid. He wanted to tell her he knew the truth about her, that she did not need to hide from him, that he would never hurt her. Instead he simply stood with her, hand in hand, and looked out to the sea.

He showed her the isles of Lewis and Harris, mist-ringed in the distance. He pointed out the distinctive call of the curlew as it soared overhead. He picked her a fragrant sprig of broom and slipped it behind her ear.

“That tall column of rock there,” she said, pointing to the bay. “It is so narrow. It looks as if it might topple over with the strike of the next wave.”

“Oh, I dinna think tha’ will happen, lass. He’s been standing that way for nigh on five hundred years at least. ’Tis Am Buachaille.”

“Aum Bo’ach-elly’a,” she repeated carefully. “What does it mean?”

“He is the herdsman.”

She cocked her head, looking at the stack. “He looks ... lonely, somehow.”

Calum smiled inwardly. If only she knew how lonely he’d been.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s walk to the water’s edge.”

It took little coaxing to convince her to shed her shoes and stockings and dip her toes into the surf. She gasped at the chill of the water, and danced back to keep the waves from wetting the hem of her gown as she gathered the many layers up in her hands. She never even realized she had exposed her lovely ankles and calves to his view, putting him in mind of the stocking he’d taken from her trunk the night before. In the end, when he’d put back all the ribbons and furbelows, he hadn’t been able to make himself return the stocking with them. She had countless other stockings, and he reasoned that she would never miss the one. So he’d tucked it back far into his desk drawer. Pitiable, perhaps, but he’d always have that scrap of silk to remember her by, even after she had gone.