When the Laird Returns (10 page)

Once, he had wished himself dead rather than maimed, but he’d been young and foolish. The time after Culloden had been difficult. Not only had he nearly died escaping Cumberland’s troops, but he’d lost his leg from a musket wound. He’d taken nearly a year to heal and months after that in order to learn to walk again.

But he was more fortunate than all those who’d never returned from battle, and he greeted them every morning, along with all the ghosts of his regrets.

Standing, he took a few stumbling steps until he gained his balance. Catching a glimpse of himself in the fragment of mirror atop his bureau, he smiled. As a smithy, the muscles of his arms and chest had become powerful over the years. De
pendence on his right leg had strengthened that limb, and his left thigh had bulked due to the effort of walking on a wooden leg. Consequently, he was a formidable figure of a man, if one could discount the fact that he was not whole.

He turned toward the window, pushing aside the draperies that the Widow McKinsey had made for him. His landlady was a sweet soul with a generous nature and two unmarried daughters. That state of affairs was to be expected in the Highlands. There was a dearth of young men in Scotland. Either they’d enlisted in the Highland Regiments or they’d been shaken loose from the land and sent fleeing from their homes for another country promising a better future.

As he did every morning, he watched the sun rise slowly over the rolling hills to the east. As the shadows began to lighten, he thought of his brother and father, lost to the world all those many years ago. His mother and sister seemed to stand smiling every morning, waving at him, their faces wreathed with smiles.

The sun stretched its arms until the horizon was filled with light, great orange-and-yellow streaks that heralded the morning. He felt his heart swell as the music of the dawn seemed to come to him in the sound of mythical pipes. Turning his head, Fergus glanced to the southwest, where Gilmuir lay. He’d been there only once since Culloden, but it had become a dead, empty place, solitary and abandoned. He’d never known if his people had been slaughtered by the English or banished like the men whose wrists were manacled with iron chains of his making.

He glanced in the direction of Leah McDonald’s childhood home. She’d married a few years after Culloden, he’d heard. He’d never sent her word that he was alive, being ashamed of his condition, trapped by pride into silence. What
woman would want a one-legged giant? A question he’d never asked Leah, and an omission for which he felt a daily regret.

If he had to relive his decision, he’d present himself in front of her, one leg missing and all, and see if they couldn’t make a future for themselves. She might have been repulsed by his injury, but there was as good a chance that she would have opened her arms to him. He would never know now.

Fergus wondered if she thought of him occasionally, if she spared any time in memory of the boy he’d been. Too late now. That song replayed itself in his mind continuously. Thirty years too late.

In a few minutes the seaport he’d chosen as his home for the past ten years would be awake. Cormech was a pleasant enough place, less crowded than Edinburgh and closer to Gilmuir. There were opportunities for him in Inverness, but he had vile memories of that town during the war and would not return.

All in all, he enjoyed his work, finding pleasure in the small things of his life. The sizzle of water in the cooling bucket as he thrust the red-hot iron into it, the curve of a horseshoe appearing beneath his oak-handled hammer. One task he’d been given, however, disturbed him. Every few weeks he was to go to a ship and manacle the Scots in the hold. He’d done the chore, fixing the chains to both wrists and ankle, maintaining the required silence and grateful that he was not obligated to speak.

What could he say to these people? As the months passed and whole families were imprisoned, his sense of horror grew. When the guards turned away, Fergus had questioned a prisoner or two. Their careful whispers verified that they were not prisoners, or guilty of any crime. They’d been sold into slavery in order to make way for sheep.

The English had been more successful at conquering Scotland than they’d believed. The young ones were not speaking the Gaelic, a generation had been born that had never heard the pipes, and lairds were banishing tackmen from their homes.

Something had to be done, Fergus MacRae reasoned. He was one man, amidst a city of people who seemed to ignore what was before their very noses. What could one man do?

He smiled, looking out at the dawn sky. Perhaps it was for this challenge that he’d been spared, after all.

I
seabal was seated in her nook on the stern, her attention directed once more to the block of stone before her. Over the past few days, she’d been working on it steadily, squaring up the corners with small, pinging taps of her chisel.

He’d never seen anyone as lost in her work as she.

From his perch in the rigging Alisdair watched her, wondering if she knew how often he did so. Iseabal was proving to be a mystery he very much wanted to solve.

Although she must have been in pain, she’d never complained, and not once had she asked what would become of her. He should have been pleased at her silence and acquiescence. Instead, he suspected that how she acted and what she felt were often at odds.

Perhaps it would be wiser to seek her thoughts in the flash of her eyes, looking past the façade of docility and serenity. In the deep green of her gaze she was neither. More than once
he’d seen irritation there, and burgeoning anger. But these emotions as well as a surprising sadness were never given voice.

She was not unlike the women he’d known all his life, Alisdair realized. They had surmounted great hardships to found a colony far away from their homeland, carrying on with their lives in stoic acceptance of every burden given them to bear. But those women had been older, and experienced in life.

Drummond had done this to her.

A memory came to him then, of Iseabal standing mute and humiliated as her father extolled her virtues as if she were no more sentient than a rock.

Nor had he himself acted with greater honor, Alisdair thought, his mind furnishing yet another memory. Not that first night when she’d sat naked to the waist, innocently beautiful and in pain, but every night thereafter.

Every time he wrapped the bandage around her waist, he fought off the impulse to stroke her skin and feel the warmth of her flesh against his lips. And every night he helped her don the nightshirt, his hand brushed against her breasts, seeking satiation of a greater need. On each occasion Iseabal sighed in response, but never said a word in protest.

His conscience was nagging at him. A curious thing, to feel as if two separate parts of himself were warring. His mind stated emphatically that he was not willing or ready to be wed, especially to a stranger. Yet he hardened when he looked at her and had dreams featuring her soft smile and talented fingers.

She was injured, a stranger, bound by his protection. But a certain part of his body recognized her only as female, warm and fragrant and essentially lovely.

He should think of her as a troll, some sort of feminine monster with snakes in her hair. Not a woman with curving pink lips, a lulling voice, hair that was now snared in an ugly kerchief.

Turning away, he faced the bow, lacing his arms through the ropes and determined to think of something other than Iseabal. Some men saw to their physical needs indiscriminately at every port, but Alisdair had never considered himself a slave of lust or a creature subject to the whims of desire. Until now. Why else would he stand on the rigging day after day in order to watch her?

Alisdair had the odd and unwelcome thought that Drummond would be laughing himself silly if he knew.

The place MacRae had chosen for her was secluded behind the captain’s cabin near the stern, and accessible only by a narrow walkway. Here, Iseabal was shielded from the sight of the sailors and their sometimes surprising behavior.

Most of them had dispensed with their shirts, revealing brown, hairy chests. Even the MacRae was tanned, but she resolutely pushed him from her thoughts.

The wind brushed playfully against her kertch, as if wishing to pull off her headdress and play among her hair. Irritated, Iseabal tightened the knot under her chin with an impatient jerk.

Two stacked boxes served as her table. Another wooden crate was her chair. And in front of her was the slab of marble, stubbornly quiet. She couldn’t envision what it might be. A statue of a horse, perhaps. Or a replica of Fernleigh.

She picked up her largest chisel, its metal surface the width of three of her fingers, and continued with her task of removing the corners. Any occupation was preferable at this
moment. She wanted to forget her surroundings and, most important, her circumstances.

This was the easiest work, yet the most treacherous. Too hard a strike in the wrong place and she could create a fissure in the stone. Or expose a cavity opening up where solid rock should be. But the ebony surface of the marble remained solid and intractable.

“Would you like tea?” Rory asked, peering around the corner.

Iseabal glanced over at him, shaking her head. Tea was evidently another custom borrowed from the Chinese, but unlike the men of the
Fortitude
, she did not enjoy it, finding it too bitter for her taste.

“Are you sure?”

Iseabal only smiled her denial. The cabin boy’s antipathy had eased during the past few days, and from time to time he even deigned to grant her a smile. She wondered if the MacRae had spoken to him, or did the fact that his captain had an annulment in mind soften the boy’s attitude?

Rory had acted as intermediary between the two of them for the past three days, ferrying questions and answers back and forth. Was she feeling any pain? Did she need anything? Was she hungry now? Did she have any preferences for her meals?

A surprise, that the
Fortitude
carried a cook on board, a man who reigned supreme, the power he wielded almost kinglike. His mop of red hair was his crown, while his scepter was the spoon he continuously waved in the air.

Iseabal didn’t see the MacRae at mealtimes, choosing to eat alone in the cabin. She was more than satisfied with such an arrangement, thinking that the less she saw of her husband, the better.

Those moments when he changed her wrapping had become increasingly difficult to bear. Her curiosity, coupled with a loneliness she’d never before felt, made her want to act in daring ways. Stroking her hand on his chest, placing her palm on his cheek, smoothing her fingers down his throat, were all gestures forbidden yet enticing. Neither spoke during those awkward occasions, and the only movements between them were those necessary as patient and physician.

At night he would return to the cabin, make his berth on the floor, falling asleep without a word. And she, trapped in mute fascination, would lie there watching him in the darkness as if to learn about him while he slept.

Last night, however, he’d done something different. He’d pulled out the table and a chair, setting them up quickly before going to one of the little doors in his chest. He retrieved a bundle of wood tied with a bit of string, and another object that looked like an oblong bowl.

Without a word he placed the objects on the table, then opened another door, retrieving a set of tools not unlike her chisels, only smaller. Reaching into a compartment behind a sliding door, MacRae pulled out a small lantern and a glass vessel shaped like a teardrop, filled with a solid yellow mixture. Placing it on top of the lantern chimney, he lit the wick, then adjusted two vents.

His hand hovered over the selection of tools, as if he were undecided about which one to use. Finally he selected one and, spreading the wood strips side by side on the table, began to trim the pieces.

From her perch half concealed by the tartan curtain, Iseabal watched him, fascinated with his actions. He, in turn, was as silent as she, intent upon his task.

When the yellow mixture was liquefied, he poured it drop
by drop onto the ends of three of the shorter pieces of wood before affixing them to the oblong bowl. No, not a bowl, she realized as he added each piece separately. The wooden structure was beginning to look like the hull of the
Fortitude,
long and sleek, with an upturn on each end.

His head was bent, his attention on his work. As if he had, Iseabal thought, forgotten her very presence. She felt the same when lost in her stone carving.

In the faint light he looked larger somehow. Shadows fell over him, pooling around his shoulders and behind his head, dancing over his features.

Finally she could stand the silence no longer, curiosity prompting her to speak. “Is it a ship?” she asked.

He glanced up, turning his head slowly toward her. A lock of hair had fallen down over his forehead, as if pointing the way to his surprising blue eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m developing a new hull for a ship I’m designing.”

“You build ships?”

“I did,” he said, the words unspoken but lingering in the air between them. Before he had surrendered a fortune for Gilmuir and a wife he didn’t want.

“You built the
Fortitude
,” she said, recognizing a similarity between the hull in his hand and the shape of the larger ship.

He nodded. “I’ll build faster ones,” he said. “Ships like birds that fly over the water.”

“Is that a form of glue, then?” she asked, pointing to the lantern.

“A mixture of linseed oil, paraffin, and some other ingredients. It’s more the consistency of wax, holding the wood together, but pliable so that I can move a piece if I wish.”

“In this is how you build a ship?” she asked curiously. “From a replica?”

“This is how I do it,” he said. “Only after I’ve tested the design do I put it on paper. The actual workmanship begins from that plan.”

Iseabal had a sudden image of him as a boy, flattened on his stomach beside a stream, floating leaves in the water and testing each one to see which was faster.

The metal chisel ringing against inflexible stone was a familiar sound, one drawing her to her task and away from thoughts of the MacRae.

Placing her tools on the impromptu table a few moments later, Iseabal flexed her stinging fingers, still feeling the vibration of the stone in her bones.

This was a peaceful place to work, with the calm waves lit golden by the sun, and the sky a brilliant blue. She could feel the current, MacRae’s sea goddess, beneath the
Fortitude
as they sliced through the water. The wind filled the sails, speeding them toward England.

A sound above made her tilt her head back, a hand shading her eyes. There on the rigging stood Rory, his bare feet resting on the ropes, his childish shoulders squared, his upper arms spindly in comparison to the MacRae’s. He stood nonchalantly beside the boy, high above the deck, his right hand pointing upward, his left easily resting against the mainmast. He didn’t seem aware of the danger, Iseabal thought, her heart beating furiously, both entranced and terrified as she watched him.

Again she was reminded of a warrior from earlier times. He looked as comfortable half naked as he did in his sartorial finery, and at ease with both the elements and danger itself.

Sound carried easily, their conversation wafting down to
the deck like a determined breeze. “Not until you’ve had more experience, Rory,” the MacRae said sternly, shaking his head in obvious denial.

“I’ve been practicing, sir,” the boy replied, his gaze one of entreaty. “Were you not my age, sir, when you first climbed the rigging?”

Alisdair studied the petitioner for several long moments. But the boy never looked away, only returned his gaze in equal measure. Finally the MacRae smiled, and with one gesture of his hand released the boy.

“Mind your feet, Rory,” he said, staring after him. “And do not be in such a hurry that you don’t see obvious dangers.”

“Yes, sir,” Rory said excitedly, bracing his feet on one of the iron bars embedded in the pitch-coated mast.

Tilting his head back, he watched as Rory rose to the next spar. His smile had disappeared and in its place was a somber attentiveness.

Iseabal turned away from the scene, from the sight of the MacRae, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. He was the MacRae, a man too large and strong to be denied, and her husband. Even if he did not wish it, he was forever bound to her. Perhaps one day, soon enough, he would declare himself released and sail back across the ocean, leaving her tied by tradition, ritual, custom, and ceremony to a man who did not want her.

Her left hand gripped the chisel, her right the mallet. At the moment, they looked like strange appendages. But it was better to concentrate on her tools than on her husband and his intentions.

Never a wife, always a bride.

She closed her eyes, banishing that thought. And the sudden image of the freedom he wished for her. Instead, she
craved the bondage he saw as matrimony, the feeling of belonging, the tandem of purpose.

What would it be like to be married to such a man? Someone who was protective, caring, and loyal?

He’d called her an artist. To most people, a piece of limestone was simply a rock, but to her, it held a magical promise. There could be an angel trapped in a bit of shale or the image of a face in marble. The first person who had understood how she felt about her work was also the man who wanted to rid himself of her.

Tracing the chips in the marble with one finger, Iseabal recalled the moment of their first meeting. Even then he had fascinated her. Alarmed her, true, but incited her curiosity.

Glancing up, she realized that Rory was climbing back down the iron rungs, more cautiously than he had ascended the mast. But the MacRae was no longer on the rigging.

Instead, he was standing a few feet away. Her heart lurched and then calmed, and her breath seemed absurdly tight.

“Why do you wear a scarf over your hair?” he asked in greeting.

“All married women wear a kertch,” she answered, surprised. “It’s a sign of modesty and decent conduct.”

He began to walk slowly toward her, the journey measured not in moments but in elongated heartbeats. His tanned chest was still bare, his shoulders naked, his stomach revealed as flat and rippling with muscle.

Iseabal looked away rather than stare, thinking that she might still be a maiden, but she knew more of her husband than she had of any man.

He reached out and touched the edge of her kertch where
it met her cheek. Her skin tingled as his callused finger began a journey down her jaw and then up to her temple. Iseabal felt her cheeks warm even as a path of chills followed his finger.