Before they could get over the shock of seeing her undress, Celestina climbed over the side, closed her blue eyes, the image of her English mother’s, and jumped into a world of grey.
Chapter 2
Niall
Bending his long back, Niall McDonall ducked his head and braced his shoulders against the wind. The braid his youngest daughter had insisted on plaiting down one side of his long hair slapped at his face each time he turned his head. The unfettered strands of dark hair that either sailed out behind or blinded him by turn tossed in the aftermath of the raging storm that had kept the lasses cowering round the fire for half the night.
The men of his Keep had been nae keener to venture outside, grumbling when they needed to fetch more wood to feed the flames that comforted the females of his household. Aileen, his daughters’ auld nurse, and his before that, kept them all entertained by telling tales that should have made the hairs curl at the backs of their necks. But not so; as Aileen related legends of goblins and Selkies, their squeals and giggles interrupted the flow of the papers he had been attempting to reread. Aye, it was nae secret that they enjoyed being scared.
After his daughters insisted he keep them company, he’d drawn up a table and sat there until the candles guttered, his time there mainly taken up with attempting to decipher his steward Gordon’s handwriting as he went through the accounts, amazed at the bottomless pit their silver had seemingly disappeared into. Nae wonder he had been so reluctant to hand over the final tally.
Not that he blamed Gordon entirely. He did, however, blame him for not keeping him informed of his late wife’s continued spendthrift ways. To begin with it hadnae mattered. His father had arranged his marriage to Flora—a bonnie wee thing whose image matched her name, her big, bluebell blue eyes ringed by gold lashes set in a pale face scattered with gold freckles. A bonnie wee thing, the image of gentleness belied by the bright red hair curling around her head and the temper to match.
The fall that took her life more than likely saved him a demonstration of that temper when he came home finally and was forced to take her to task.
Aye, the lass had brought a deal of money in her dowry and, after o’er many years of living in a square towerhouse on this cauld, isolated coastline, she had yet to run out of ways to spend it, mainly because of his efforts to supplement their income—an effort that had come back to bite his arse. Flora had enjoyed being at home with naught but their bairns to keep her company.
Had he loved her as a man loves a woman he hopes to spend the rest of his life with? That was a tale that would never be told. Nae. He tore his mind away from memories that made the blood in his veins thicken and slow. The time for laying blame had passed. He had his motherless bairns to think of. They came first.
He had learned that lesson well. Ye had to be kind to lasses, for a cross word might mean they would up and die on ye, the way Flora had. Before he had left on his last journey to France, he and Flora had exchanged heated words. Heated … they were like to take the roof off. The last words he had said to her before he rode away still rang in his memory: ‘I’m a warrior, not a lapdog trained to sniff around a lassie’s skirts. If it was dancing ye wanted ye should have stayed in Stirling town and not come to Inverbrevie. And nae, Gordon cannae take ye in my stead. He has more than enough work to do here.’
He had ridden away with but one last glance over his shoulder at Flora. She’d been crying into her kerchief, holding it to her mouth, as she was wont when she couldn’t get her own way—a not uncommon sight. That had been in early March while the roads were still iron hard and not up to the horse’s fetlocks in mud. When he returned at the end of June, Flora had been dead three long months. Niall pushed those memories back down, swallowed hard to clear his throat, and yelled against the wind: ‘I am Niall McDonall. I will always be a warrior.’
Using one hand, he captured his kilt to prevent it ruffling up his long legs as he strode across the cliff top. At this part of the coast, the sea had bitten deeply into the cliffs, and the bay nearest the house formed a long finger of water, sometimes blue and sparkling, sometimes steel grey and dull, the way he’d felt himself when he returned and saw his poor motherless bairns. And here he was again, thinking on things he couldn’t change.
Intent this morning on examining the cliff, his eyes scanned the ragged edge, on the lookout for an auld Scots pine. One of his shepherds told him the cliff had collapsed in the storm, taking with it an auld tree that had seen better days. Niall couldn’t deny that the same could have been said about most things around the property of Inverbrevie. The place, neither house nor land, had been any sinecure when ceded to him on his marriage to Flora as part of her dowry.
He shivered, and not just from his thoughts. The cool Scottish summer had lasted long enough to fade the tan burnt onto his face by the French sun during the months he had spent there as a mercenary. At moments like this, he almost wished he were back in France, instead of stuck at home, a widower with three unruly daughters, but he found it difficult to chastise them, fearing a repeat of what had happened to Flora. Mayhap his father had the right of it: he needed another wife to tend to the house and his bairns.
His father—the McDonall chieftain—would lash him with scorn at giving Aileen leave to let them run wild, but then his wife hadnae done much better. And he couldnae let Aileen take the blame. At her age she should be sitting at the fire, a shawl tucked about her rounded shoulders, hair getting greyer by the day, instead of being worn out by running after young legs she hadnae a hope of catching. He had barely recognised her on his return; lines bracketed grey eyes, and her once beaky nose drooped towards her top lip as if she belonged in one of the tales she told the lasses.
Niall could see the pine up ahead. It had never been much to look at, battered by every gale that skelped across the cliff, and even now it clung to the edge by the tips of its roots, the way he had been doing to his independence lately.
Peering through the twisted branches, he considered giving the tree the final push to topple it on to the sand and God help anyone beneath. He could imagine it happening when his daughters were racing along the beach chasing the gulls that wheeled overhead this morning, mewling and diving, swooping above the sands where a small seal lay adrift at the high-water mark.
The creature nestled on spume dried into salty lace that tangled with seaweed and flotsam, as if yesterdays’ storm had had the better of some passing ship. He had a sudden vision of the seal’s struggle to reach the shore.
He knew all about struggle. He’d fought most his life to retain his independence and had thought long and hard before following his father’s advice and marrying Flora for the dowry and Keep it had brought him. Since he had become laird of Inverbrevie, the folks here had looked to him for guidance. Mayhap, he should take the same advice again, if only for the sake of his lasses. In his heart, all he wanted was to make sure his family and the families of his clan Sept were kept safe from harm, that everyone was kept fed and warm through the worst of the winters on this wild shore.
Without a second thought, Niall found himself running along the cliff edge toward a path cut into the cliff that sloped down to the bay at an angle—a path his daughters were accustomed to take as they made their way down to the water. As he ran, the notion crossed his mind that if the seal were badly hurt he would have to put it out of its misery. A notion that had Niall ducking to reach the top of his hose where his skean dhu lay tucked behind the woollen fold.
Grains of sand squeaked under his boots with each long stride taken, his hands waving above his head and sunlight reflecting from the skean dhu to bounce off the ripples carved by the receding tide. ‘Away with ye,’ he yelled at the birds. ‘Away ye damned scavengers.’
The closer he got to the seal, the faster he ran, skidding onto his knees with gulls exploding into the air around him as he pushed with one foot to roll the creature over, his skean dhu raised ready to put the poor thing out of its misery.
‘Aaieee!’ The
creature’s scream as it turned over made his fingers freeze around the hilt.
Just as well, for he now recognised that the creature wasnae a seal.
His breath stilled in his throat, locked there while his heart pounded with trepidation. It took all he had in him to rise and brush the sand off his knees, to stand over her body and take in the truth of the sand-coated skin hanging about her body—a Selkie.
All his life Niall had listened to Aileen’s tales. Unicorns and sea serpents he had given nae mind to, but Selkies? He had always secretly hoped they were real. Magic sea creatures—beautiful lasses that came ashore from the depths. He had dreamed of them, wet dreams—sensual in his growth into manhood—as he dreamed of plucking the a Selkie from the water and pulling her up against his chest, then holding her in his arms while he ravaged her mouth. Niall felt himself grow hard at the memory.
‘God blind me,’ he cursed his wayward memory loudly, making the Selkie’s body jolt, and in an instant she had rolled over, arm flung over her head as if she expected to be hurt, and nae wonder. He had held a knife above her throat and still carried it in his hand.
Swiftly, he tucked the blade back inside the top of his hose, remembering as he did the vile deeds that Aileen told him had been done to prevent these fairies of the deep from returning to the sea by those who wanted to keep all that magic and beauty to themselves.
Niall sucked in a harsh breath and, shaking his head as if that would help regain his wits, he let out a growl, a warning meant for his ears only, sensing he might have raced across the sands from one destiny to another by paying over much heed to Aileen’s nonsense.
The creature had already begun to shed its skin.
It fell away like shredded grey silk, skin that nae longer clung to a body that, if he didnae know better, he would have sworn was human. Not that he could see much of the face, beneath long strands of black hair. But the breast peeking out from behind strips of loosened skin was as braw and as human as a man could ask for.
Hunkering down beside her, he gently touched a shoulder, shook it. ‘Are ye alive lass?’ he asked, uncertain what else to call the creature, who was undoubtedly female. Niall hastily plucked his hand away as she stirred, swiftly hitting out with a wee fist to drive him away, as if yon dainty pink fingers could do much damage. The effort was obviously over much for her. It was easy seen there was nae fight left in the creature. She could hardly swat a fly away. The best he could do for the lass for now was to carry her back to the Keep and put her in Aileen’s care.
Thankfully, because he was at home, he had simply thrown on a plain linen shirt caught in at the waist by the belt that held up his kilt. As was usual, he had flung the tail of chequered green plaid across his shoulder. Now he pulled loose the length of worsted sitting on his shoulder away from his belt and lifted the lithe young body off the sand. Gently, he wrapped his plaid around her hips and ribs and lifted her against his chest, shushing under his breath as if she were a bairn. He was surprised when she tucked her head into his shoulder.
Celestina
She was alive. How she knew not.
Her skin hurt when touched, tender where the sea and sand had scraped and scratched at a surface unused to aught but velvet and silk, yet, miraculously, she was still alive. And the San Miguel, had it weathered the storm, or had it gone to the bottom, the way her father had done, Rosalina had done? Yet, somehow, Celestina had survived.
That thought stayed foremost in her mind—a mantra, a prayer that she would win through nay matter what lay ahead.
The hands of the man carrying her were gentler than the ones that had tugged and pulled at her in the water, saving her from death on the rocks as well as preventing her from drowning in the depths. Whose were they? She knew not. Mayhap one of the sailors who had fallen overboard. Nay. That was as likely as Celestina’s saviour being her father’s spirit reaching out from under the roiling waves to save his daughter.
Resting her head against the shoulder of the giant carrying her brought comfort until his long strides appeared to climb. She heard pebbles roll away from underfoot and squealed hoarsely when she thought they would fall, grasping the front of the coarse linen garment he wore above the waist.
‘Whist now, lass. I willnae drop ye.’ His husky words floated above her head, spoken in a rough almost unrecognisable accent—a peasant mayhap, since she had understood a few English words, though what he meant by his last murmur, ‘Not now that I have found ye,’ she had little notion.
Madre mia! Had he been searching for her? And if so, why? Had he seen the San Miguel going down?
She wanted to ask, who are you—but dared not. Certainly, she spoke English—as her mother had taught her—but with an unmistakable Spanish accent, so she contented herself with feeble squeals and groans, to all of which the man responded with soothing sounds, as one might whisper to a baby.
She knew they had reached the top by the way the wind from inland tugged at the woollen cloth he had wrapped around her. It made her want to huddle closer to his warmth. Strange, for she had never been this close to a man in her life, neither father nor brother. Yes, truly strange to suddenly learn that a man’s body could burn hotter than the kitchen fire in their townhouse high above the water at home in Coruña.
She realised that she knew all these things about the man who carried her, yet she had never even glimpsed his face. His long strides carried them toward what she assumed by his clothes must be his peasant’s cottage. She let her mind wander, musing over what he looked like. He had strong arms and legs. She knew this by how little her weight slowed his pace. And she imagined him swinging an axe, chopping wood to keep the fire burning for his family. His voice was deep, a fact that made her sure his features were as strong as the rest of him, unlike some of the rich men she had peeped at when they visited her father on business. Or like her reckless fiancé who had died in a duel.
‘I’ll soon have ye home and out of the wind and inside where Aileen can look after ye. Nae doubt ye have seen enough water this day, but our Aileen will soon have ye in a tub of warm water to rob yer limbs of the shivers that I can feel wracking yer poor wee body.’
Aileen. That must be his wife’s name. She expected he had mentioned his wife to put her at ease, yet naught he had done made her fearful of his intentions. A warm bath sounded wonderful, yet her body ached with tiredness likely to make her fall asleep in the water. How perverse to survive one dunking to drown in another.
The cloth the man had wrapped her in felt abrasive yet warm, scratchy against her poor abused skin, yet she welcomed the sensation—proof that she was alive. That’s when Celestina realised she had begun to notice the texture of the wool more because of the hand rubbing back and forth across her back. Was it wrong of her to enjoy a tender touch from a stranger?
Life as the daughter of a highborn Spaniard, although luxurious, was isolating, especially after her mother died, and even before then when some highborn señora took exception to her English bloodline. That undeniable truth had caused friction betwixt her brother and father, a disagreement never resolved since her brother abandoned a del Vargas family tradition—a life at sea. The final insult had come when Miguel took up a commission in the army, a choice that had led to his death, fighting against the French. Had she been superstitious, she might have believed in the inevitability of fate—that her brother’s decision had led to her father’s unwillingness to leave her alone in Spain. Thence her frightening voyage aboard the San Miguel, her father’s demise, and the latest in fate’s design—her rescue from the shore by a giant peasant.
The noise of gravel crunching underfoot interrupted her musing about a past that could never be changed. As gravel gave way to uneven stone, she was tempted to turn in his arms to discover where he was taking her but, like her past, she knew there was naught that she could do to change whatever was about to happen. She was practically naked and exhausted. Even if she could find the energy to run away, what chance did she have of surviving as a stran
ger in a strange land—a naked stranger?
The man’s shoulder dipped and her head fell back against his arm, giving Celestina an unexpected glimpse of strong, handsome features. Her heart raced, banged inside her breastbone, but this time fear for her life was not the cause. A door creaked open as he put the weight of his shoulder behind it, opening the entrance to his home.
She heard voices—children—but the sounds ran together, ringing hollowly as if against hard walls. Not the cottage she had expected. Turning her face into his shoulder again, she hid, frightened, as she should have been from the moment he plucked her off the sand. That did not prevent her from clutching the front of his linen shirt as he strode closer to the voices, hearing one young and definitely female piping,
‘What have ye got for us Pa?’
Chapter 3
Niall
Fiona, his youngest daughter, was always the most curious of the three. Add to that hungry, always sniffing around for a wee treat. ‘What have ye got for us Pa?’ He hoped she wasnae disappointed.
Before he could answer, Aileen pushed up out of the wooden chair by the fire, an honour she had earned with loyal service to the McDonall family. ‘Whist now, Fiona, dinnae poke and push, let me see for ma self.’ An order that had his other two daughters racing over to join the huddle of fidgeting bodies surrounding him, stepping on his toes. ‘Let me see.’ ‘Nae, let me.’
‘Enough,’ Niall barked, regretting it immediately he felt the slight wee figure jerk in his arms with fright. He pushed the hair back from her face. Her blue eyes widened as she gazed up into his. ‘There now, wee lass, I can assure ye that yer perfectly safe here at Inverbrevie Keep.’
Bride From the Sea Page 2
