He shifted behind her as if studying their surroundings.
‘The burn we’re crossing is narrow and shallow here.’ She swayed in her seat as Mungo picked his way across the running stream. ‘There are trees on both sides and long grass in some places. There are some flowers too.’
He might be good at rescuing women he didn’t know, but he was dreadful at describing the beauty around them. ‘The sky. What colour is the sky?’
‘The sky is blue.’
Isla hid a smile. ‘Aye, but what shade of blue? What does the colour remind ye of?’
He cleared his throat. ‘Blue is blue.’
She heard the frustration in his tone, but she needed to show him he was wrong.
‘Oh, but its nae just blue.’ She sighed and dredged up long ago memories she’d captured and locked away in her mind. Safe. Secure. Hers. ‘Is it a blue so pale it’s almost white like the ice melting after a long winter freeze? Or is it a blue so dark ’tis the colour of the heavens a moment before the day truly ends and submits to the night? Or perhaps it’s the same shade of blue that surrounds and cups and protects the hot centre of a flickering flame.’ The precious memory faded. Grasses and twigs crunched beneath Mungo’s hooves. She held her breath. The man at her back must think her mad.
‘’Tis blue …’
Isla slowly exhaled and felt herself sinking into the pit of loneliness once more.
‘Blue like the chicory flower.’
A rushing sound filled her ears as if a waterfall had formed inside her head. The sudden image of a chicory plant she’d seen as a lass awoke and came to life inside her mind, so clear, so real, she almost reached out her hand to touch it. It wasn’t real, but the memory was and the man sitting behind her, a man of few words and one she barely knew, had returned it to her this time as a gift.
‘Thank ye,’ she whispered. ‘I can see the sky now.’
Chapter 10
Whenever the trail of their own making became too difficult, too filled with clumps of flesh-tearing bracken or sink-to-your-knees bogs, Cal steered Mungo back to the other side of the undulating Causey Mounth. At other times, he kept his horse on the well-travelled path.
The men and women and the few children they shared the trail with, all heading north, looked their fill as they rode by on horseback, bounced by in carts and trudged past on foot. No one passed them travelling south.
A small gathering of cottages on the east side of the track sat huddled close together and resembled the cluster of buildings he’d caught glimpses of the night of the storm. Had they sheltered in the broken peat house only the night before? Cal glanced down at the woman who had asked him for nothing but to know the colour of the sky.
The depth of gratitude in her whispered words when she’d thanked him had caused an invisible fist to close about his heart and squeeze. Just the memory set the fist that wasn’t real to clench his heart again now.
The woman seated between his thighs, closer than any other woman had been to him, lifted her face and inhaled as if she could see things by tasting the air.
Cal looked to his left at the unimpeded view of where the coastline veered toward them and fell away to a never-ending sheet of rippling water that glistened with midafternoon sunlight. He drew in the smell of salt and fish, so much stronger here.
‘We have stayed our course but ride closer to the sea.’ Her head turned to one side. Her left ear, small and perfect, tilted up as if to hear him better. ‘The land curves inward closer to where we ride and drops into the water from high above.’ Cal cleared his throat, uncertain of what he was saying or why. ‘The sun is shining on the water and makes the tiny waves look like the many colours of precious stones.’
The side of her mouth he could see lifted high in a smile and the fist that had taken up residence inside his chest again seized his heart. But this time he didn’t suffer the aching heaviness for her for what she had lost. Instead, he felt a floating warmth ignite in his chest and spread outward through the rest of his body.
‘It has been so long since I saw the sea. Ye make it sound more beautiful than I remember.’
Precisely as he’d wanted it to sound. For her. Cal frowned and searched the path ahead. Making her smile wasn’t part of his oath to get her safely to Restenneth Priory. But he had and it was done and it was enough. Now, instead of focusing on colours and light, he needed to concentrate on finding the safest place to cross the burn ahead.
He steered Mungo to the left where the burn narrowed before it fell into the sea. They rode a little further, avoiding numerous travellers heading north, but rejoined the main track to ride through a small town and cross a stone bridge over yet another burn.
On they rode and he noted the number of people they passed grew less with the lowering of the sun. They’d stop for a short rest but thanks to the sleep he’d had this morning and the good weather, they’d continue on through the night.
And then, to his left, with the jewel-like sea sparkling behind it, he saw the unmistakable sight of a stone cross gracing the grounds of a kirk. His heartbeat quickened. He’d told Isla he’d given up searching, but the sight of the cross lured him and proved he still held onto hope.
‘We will take a short rest here.’ She responded with a sigh that spoke of relief. They had been riding since midmorning without a stop.
He guided Mungo across the green grass to the low stone wall separating the kirkyard from intruders. The kirk, a single-storey structure that was longer than it was wide, stood like an offering to the sea that could never reach its assortment of grey and brown sharp stone walls. Headstones and crosses dotted the grounds at the southern end and several stone crosses stood along the land side of the kirk. These crosses, the ones that stood alone, were the ones that drew him, called to him and made him wonder if he would find the one he’d spent nigh on the last year searching for.
Cal dismounted and reached up to assist Isla from the saddle. She tipped to the side and a grasped the tops of his shoulders as he lifted her to the ground. Her grip moved to his lower arms and didn’t let go.
‘Forgive me. My … my legs seem to have forgotten how to hold me upright.’ She released a tiny sound she meant as a laugh but to Cal it was void of humour.
‘Give them time. They’ll remember soon enough.’
He stood and watched her and saw how the day out in sun had given her creamy smooth skin a warm glow. Her lashes were lowered and at ease and appeared more red than brown in the afternoon light.
She wriggled where she stood. ‘There, they remember now.’ She released his arms but it took him a moment to remember he held her about her waist and for several moments he’d forgotten about the crosses.
‘Good.’ He let go. ‘There’s a stone wall for you sit on.’ He walked around and untethered the skin of water and pulled the stopper free.
‘Ah, nae, I’m happy to stand while we rest.’
Cal was used to being in the saddle for days. Isla was not. ‘Some water?’
‘Aye, thank ye,’ she said, accepting the skin he guided into her hand.
The slender line of her throat rippled as she drank. The noise she made when she’d finished captured his attention and doubled his thirst.
He took back the skin when she’d finished and drank his fill, silently asking what in God’s good name was wrong with him?
‘Where are we?’
He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘We’ve stopped in a kirkyard beside the sea.’
He waited for her to ask more questions, but instead she said, ‘If ye could take me to the wall ye mentioned, I think I will sit for a moment or two.’
Cal stared down at this woman who couldn’t see him or his expression, yet seemed to know why he’d decided to have them rest here. ‘Aye.’ He took the elbow she offered and guided her the few steps toward the low stone wall. He put the skin to one side and taking her fingers, he set her hand atop the cold stones. ‘I’ll just be a few moments.’
&nb
sp; She nodded. ‘Of course.’
Cal looked away from her small smile filled with understanding. Or was the look only imagined? He leapt over the wall and glanced at her over his shoulder only once before he strode to the first stone cross. He then moved to the next and the next until he’d stood on either side of every one. But none were the one of his dreams, the one he’d been looking for. Disappointment once again lodged heavy and deep in his gut.
* * *
With every step the horse beneath them took, the more the silence between them frayed the air like a much-worn apron. Other than ’Tis time to move on from him and her expressing her need to find a bush before they started riding again, they’d not exchanged a single word. Isla started to worry that in those few moments apart, Callum had mulled over what they were doing and where they were going.
He sat directly behind her, but she’d held herself perfectly upright so they did not touch in case the contact encouraged him to say he’d changed his mind, he’d taken her as far as he planned to, had risked his life enough for a woman he hardly knew.
In God’s name, he’d fought off several attackers before he even understood what was happening. Then they’d climbed out of a window to escape her betrothed. She couldn’t blame him if he had thought what he was doing through and had had a change of heart. Heart. He did have heart. Why else would he have made a promise to her father? She wanted to say something to convince him he was doing what was right, but no matter how she changed the order of words or the words themselves, she sounded selfish. Who was she to tell him what was right?
But what if the hopelessness she sensed he’d fallen into had nothing to do with taking her to the priory? They’d stopped at a kirkyard. Why there? Despite him saying he’d given up searching for his mother, had there been stone crosses within the yard that had lured him to stop and look?
She understood the heart-wrenching loss of losing your mother. She’d lived it. She’d survived by sharing her grief with her father and with the help of her friend, Sorcha. Without days spent weeping on her father’s shoulder from dawn till dusk, and if not for Sorcha distracting her with plans for both of them to wed wealthy lairds and live in giant castles, wearing costly gowns and jewels aplenty, Isla believed she would have died along with her mother and the little brother she never knew. But Callum didn’t know his parents, or if he had any brothers or sisters. Her mother had died, but from the little Callum had said, he didn’t know what had happened to his.
What could she possibly say to renew his hope when his mother could have died when he was four?
A subtle shift from behind was the only warning she had before Mungo came to a halt. Was this it? Was this where he’d lower her to the ground and wish her well before riding away?
Her fingers clutched the pommel as if they’d never let go, and she clamped her elbows into her sides. She wouldn’t go without a fight. If only she could think of a reason, an excuse, anything, but she who took great pleasure in talking couldn’t think of a single thing to say.
Mungo turned slightly to the right and seemed to dance in one place before he stopped and held perfectly still. She sensed a change in the man at her back, something stronger than the disappointment that had seemingly built a wall between them. Something good.
Isla waited, for what she didn’t know, her stomach tying itself in knots. He deserved something positive, he deserved—
‘If I live to be an old man, never will I see a more magnificent sight than the one I am seeing now.’
Callum could have recited every name of every type of fish in the sea, yet she’d still hear the tone of awe in his voice. Her heart thudded inside her chest. She didn’t know what he was looking at, but she took a long, slow breath to quiet the pounding and eased the closing of her eyes to ensure she didn’t miss a single word he was about to say.
‘There is a grand fortress set atop a large outcropping of rock.’
Isla searched her memory for tales her father shared of the few times he’d travelled and the sights he’d seen. He’d spoken of a magnificent castle years before. Could it be the same one? Her father’s voice had held a similar note of awe. She searched her memory for the name, but …
‘Sheer cliffs drop into the sea on three sides. The rock the fortress sits on is in shadow but appears to be of a red and brown hue,’ there was a brief pause. ‘Like the colours of a grouse.’
Isla recalled her recent mishap in the bushes, along with the image of a grouse she’d once seen and tucked away for safe keeping long ago. The rock with its steep sides took shape in her mind.
‘There is a great thick wall of stone circling the edges of the cliff rock, surrounding all within. A tower stands higher than the wall. Both look to be new and built from the same coloured stones, but the lowering sunlight has left the whole fortress awash in gold.’
The gilt-coloured stones of the defensive wall and the tower house within created a new image inside her head. While her father had told her of the grand castle and its wondrous location, she’d never been able to form a picture of the whole. But Callum wasn’t telling her about the castle, he was showing her.
‘I dinnae know if we’d be admitted inside the walls, but we cannae risk being caught,’ Callum said quietly.
She knew they needed to continue travelling south, but knowing he’d taken the time to stop and describe the castle to her, after suffering his own disappointment, left her heart feeling full to bursting and an urgent need to touch him.
She released her right hand’s hold on the pommel, and casting her fingers slowly over Mungo’s neck and wiry mane, she found the rein on the right and followed the leather strip along by her side until she found the warm fingers holding it steady.
He flinched, as if he’d not known, hadn’t seen her reaching for him. His fingers relaxed as she covered them with her palm, her full heart pumping swiftly at the feel of his warm skin, and with his touch the name came to her. She gently squeezed his hand, just once and said, ‘Dunnottar Castle is beautiful. Thank ye,’ she let him go.
* * *
They continued following the coastline south deep into the night, only stopping twice to eat the last of their food and to give Isla a short respite from Mungo’s saddle. Despite his encouragement to sleep, she’d fought to stay awake, slipping into slumber several times in-between. Cal had waited for the telltale signs of her upper body slowly tilting to one side or slumping forward before he’d caught her each time and carefully tucked her into the crook between his chest and his left arm. The feel of her sinking against him was more pleasant than was wise, but he continued to catch her and settle her against him just so.
Having her search out his hand and touch him, in what he’d taken as a gesture of appreciation for describing the most magnificent castle he’d ever seen …
He inhaled a long breath to stop himself reaching for her now, his fingers twitching as they battled the powerful desire to touch the hand resting against her hip. To cradle the whole in his palm, to link their fingers and hold tight. He wanted to touch her, but that one earlier gesture of gratitude left him wanting her to touch him more.
The woman of his unfamiliar wanting stirred awake, and the moment she realised she was lying back in his arms, she sat upright, the coming dawn’s cooler air rushed in to fill the space between them.
‘Did I sleep for long?’ She half turned and spoke over her shoulder.
‘Nae. I was about to wake you. The sun will soon rise.’ Cal preferred to let her sleep but he didn’t know the way to the priory, while Isla did and time was of the essence. ‘We’ve reached the large river you spoke of that flows into the sea.’ The road they’d travelled continued south, once across the fast-flowing river, but there was also another path that led inland away from the coast.
Isla nodded, as if taking in and sorting what he said in her mind. ‘I remember Father saying the path inland leads to Brechin. If we continue without stopping, we will arrive at Restenneth Priory by this evening.’
&nb
sp; She sat as still as a stone as if she were waiting for him to speak. He held his silence, uncertain of what he might reveal if he did say something.
They rode on following the bank of the river for a time until they came to a wooden bridge built over one of the narrow sections of the fast-flowing burn. The sun rose, splashing the east coast in its warm, golden glory as they reached the other side and headed further inland. Thick trees lined the track they rode along on either side and as the sun moved higher in the sky, they began to come across others travelling along the same route but heading in the opposite direction.
A lad around ten summers carried a basket filled with loaves, the mouth-watering smell of freshly baked bread was enticing enough to make Callum stop and ask him where he’d got them.
‘Mistress Cobb lives about the bend there,’ he said with a bob of his head in the direction he spoke of. ‘She sells the best loaves and ale in all of Angus.’
Cal had no idea if the lad was Mistress Cobb’s son, but his words, along with the belly rousing scent, were enough to make him draw Mungo to a stop behind the first of two wooden cottages situated on the other side of the curve in the path. He left Isla mounted and in Mungo’s care and purchased several loaves and a skin of ale from the portly woman who’d lost three of her front teeth over the years, but had a smile and a wink that left all who stopped grinning when they left. He remounted and they headed further along the path until midmorning. Cal lead them to a place where the trees thinned and gave way to a slim burn that bubbled and splashed over rocks washed smooth, and branches that had broken away from broader limbs only to find themselves wedged under large and small stones submerged beneath to running stream.
‘We will rest here for a while.’
Cal was pleased by the sound of her sigh. Whether the cause was due to needing a break from riding or if she too was suddenly averse to reaching the priory by the end of the day, Cal didn’t know and he certainly wouldn’t speak of it. He’d given his word to her father but now he was on the verge of seeing his promise fulfilled, he was reluctant to have their journey together end. Not yet.
The Saint Page 10
