As usual, Fiona had to have her say. ‘The priest stays at the McDonall’s castle—our grandfather’s castle, that is. We dinnae go there very often. He and Pa dinnae get on very well.’
Niall had kissed her, but had yet to mention his father, or anyone else in his family besides his daughters and his late wife. ‘Ye should not say things like that to strangers, Beth, it’s family business.’
‘I think Pa would like to make ye part of the family,’ said Fiona, ‘I see the way he looks at ye. It’s the same way the lad courting Jean looks at her when she sneaks out to meet him.’
‘She sneaks? I think it is Fiona who is eavesdropping, and I’ll have ye know that is very rude,’ Celestina told her, curious why Jean had said naught about a lover. ‘What lovers say to one another is private and when yer being courted by a lad, ye will understand.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t tell what they were saying. The lad talks funny.’
‘Hurry up, the two of ye. We’re going down to the water,’ Fiona complained, then turned on her heel and ran off.
‘I’m ready,’ Beth said, adding her stockings to the pile and immediately followed her sister. Celestina had never had a sister, and this closeness betwixt siblings was completely foreign to her. However, she knew firsthand how fierce the waves could be, how dangerous, and that made her run after them.
The tide was out, but she could see it was on the turn, and as she hurried down to the sea’s edge, she began to feel nauseous.
How could she have forgotten the courage it had taken to leap off the San Miguel into the cruel pounding sea? Or that this was where she had almost lost her life? As if called up by some spirit, seagulls began wheeling and mewling overhead, followed by a louder deep bark that she recognised but could not remember why. Whatever, it was more important to make sure the girls did not come to harm—reason enough to forget her queasy stomach and hurry to catch up with them before they fell in.
Mingled with the noise of the sea, gulls and other sounds, she recognised her name. A man’s voice calling her. The combination was enough to turn her bones cold. She froze on the spot, looking out to sea expecting to see her father, calling Celi, and hopeful, she searched the horizon to no avail.
The next time she heard her name, the voice came from behind her, and when she turned around, saw that Niall was running along the cliff top.
Niall
The sea air raked him with every breath he dragged in, as if his throat were filled with rough gravel. Heart pounding like a drum, Niall lengthened his stride, racing to reach the head of the cliff path, desperate to run without the need to keep looking back over his shoulder to check on Sellie, to make sure that she didnae go near the water.
She felt like family—a wife.
A lover.
He couldn’t lose her.
The sun was his enemy. Its heat seared his back till the sweat ran betwixt his shoulder blades, soaking his shirt with what felt like blood, but still he ran.
‘Sellie, wait!’ He ran down the path, stones skittering beneath the soles of his boots.
To his ears, his voice sounded weak, worn down, but his determination didnae wane. ‘Stop her lasses. Keep Sellie out of the water.’
His daughters seemed to think it was a game, but they hadnae been here when he found her, stretched out naked on the sand, her skin falling off in shreds as if she were but another piece of flotsam. Fiona in particular looked to be enjoying herself, squealing as she danced around on bare feet, tugging at Sellie’s full skirts. The other two lasses had contrived to join hands and dance in front, making a barrier to the sea.
Niall took all this in as he charged across soft sand, throwing stinging grains up onto his knees and thighs. As for Sellie, her jaw dropped as if stunned, while she looked from one to the other of them, gathering up her skirts to rescue them from Fiona in a wee tug-of-war.
‘What is wrong, Niall?’
Three strides away he panted, ‘You must not go into the sea, lass,’ and almost immediately pulled her into his arms and up over his shoulder with her skirts hanging like a tent around him, creating a need for him to pat and smooth the fullness from buttocks to knees to the sound of his daughters’ screams.
‘Dinnae skelp her Pa. It was our fault.’
‘She only came down to the beach to look after us,’ the two eldest yelled in turn.
Somewhere behind him, he heard Sellie cry out, and she sounded scared. ‘I would not go into the sea. I’m wearing my good slippers.’
His chest was heaving, breath after breath dragged in until he could speak without giving himself away, without letting free the weight of emotions tearing him apart, without betraying himself to daughters who werenae in on the secret. He gave them a stern look. ‘You lasses run on ahead. I’ll bring Sellie.’
They scampered across the sand, grabbing up their shoes and stockings with swift wee peeks over their shoulders, probably to make sure he hadnae murdered Sellie.
As if he could. He could nae remember ever suffering such intense terror—even on the battlefield. But then, until lately he had never cared whether he died or survived. There had been times when returning home to his loving wife had been his least important desire. He loved his daughters, but any feelings he had scrounged up for his wife barely existed by the day he last left for France. Flora had cared more for the spoils he brought home with him.
Sellie’s fists pounded weakly on his back. Huh. The gulls wheeling overhead could have done more damage. Gulls notwithstanding, the hairs on the back of his neck had begun to curl. It made him want to turn his collar up, as if the deep soughing of the waves and the barking of seals swaying on the rocks, calling out to the woman he carried, had conjured up an icy wind from the north. If he believed one certainty in this world, it was that Sellie’s own kind would never look after or support the lass the way he would.
Sellie was his. He would never give her up, and if the priest had arrived, he would already have made her his wife. Because of the delay, a suspicion had begun to grow, way back in his mind, that he might expect a visit from his father any day now. He had done it to himself, but where else was he going to send a messenger requesting a priest?
Sheer stupidity. However, his mind had been full of the sensation of holding Sellie in his arms, of thrusting inside her and feeling her heat clasp his prick, feeling the waves of pleasure as she reached completion, dragging him along with her. How else did one describe exaltation, of reaching heights he hadnae been aware existed?
His father was going to want the reason for it.
And would once again poke his bluidy nose in his son’s business.
Nae matter how much Sellie punched and squirmed, Niall refused to put her down until he reached the top of the slope. Then he slid her off his shoulder and down his chest, keeping her close, her skirts bunched up around his thighs like an invitation—a summons he was well prepared for. That was how she affected him nae matter how many times he took her during the night. He couldn’t get enough.
Selkie magic. It had brought her to him, a gift that could delight or destroy.
‘I dinnae want ye to leave me. Please keep away from the water. I’m scared it will pull ye away and I’ll never see ye again. I could hear the seals calling ye, tempting ye back to the water. But surely ye’re getting used to living on the land now, living with folk, biding with me.’
Then he remembered the gift he had placed inside his sporran to bring to her before he had been shocked out of his wits seeing her standing at the edge of the water. Stepping back, he dug his hand into the leather pouch and found the velvet bag with its wee circlet of gold hidden inside.
‘I have something for ye.’ He held the ring betwixt his finger and thumb.
Sellie leaned forward to examine gold band. The aquamarine stone set in it glinted like the sea on a day like today, with the sun on it, turning the shallows edging the bay a bonnie blue-green. She looked up at him, revealing the tears he had caused by treating her like a sack of grain. Niall
cupped her jaw and swept his thumb under eyelashes beaded with tears. How could he have done this to the woman he wanted more than aught else in his world?
A smile trembled on her lips as she rubbed the tip of a finger across the bonnie blue jewel. ‘Nice. For me, is it?’
With nae more ado, Niall pushed the ring onto her finger. When he hadnae been tending to the stewardship of Inverbrevie Keep he had searched for the ring in amongst the spoils he had brought back with him from France. ‘I said we wouldn’t tell anyone we were hand-fasted, but I nae longer care. When the priest arrives we will be married legally.’ He passed that off with a shrug, as if it didnae matter so much. ‘Folks will just have to get used to it.’
‘I will like that,’ she told him, shyly rubbing the ring against her cheek.
‘And I will like that as well. I never want to hear of ye trying to leave again. This ring is a promise that we will cleave to each other and forsake all else. Even the sea.’
‘I promise,’ she said as he pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips.
‘That’s a guid lass. A guid bonnie lass.’ He kissed her again and took his time about the process, until it was all he could not to give her a tumble on the grass where the seals calling from the rocks could see she was his.
‘We should go back to the Keep. The lasses will wonder what is holding us up.’ Another kiss and he said, ‘It’s just as well we’ll be married soon for I’m thinking ye could already be carrying my child.’ He spread his palm wide, covering her belly as he gave it a press. ‘In here.’
As he took her hand in his, the one that wore his ring, a thought took shape that he must keep her close. He hadnae the least notion what a child of theirs would be like. A sudden picture of a bairn drowning floated into his mind on a bubble of fear. What if his bairn couldn’t swim? What if she took his son out there with her to the sea?
Celestina
The lasses kept giving Niall and her curious sideways glances. Niall’s behaviour must have seemed so out of character. In fact, Celestina, too, was having a problem connecting what had taken place on the water’s edge with the good man she had believed she was coming to know.
Truthfully, Niall was everything she had hoped to find in a suitor, though back then she had expected him to be Spanish—a pipe dream, for didn’t a huge part of Niall’s makeup come from his Scottish heritage? And Scots were superstitious. They must be, for Aileen, Jean and Niall believed in the lie.
And that’s what made her feel guilty.
That and the inkling she might just be falling in love with Niall. At least she hoped it was love and not simply gratitude. How did one tell?
During the time it took them to return to the Keep, Celestina came to the conclusion that she owed Niall her life, and for that, the price she would be paying could never be too much.
Stamping the sand off his feet, Niall shooed the lasses into the keep before them and called out to Aileen. When she came bustling into the entrance hall, he said, ‘Take the lasses into the laundry so they can wash off the sand, then have the bathing tub off the master’s chamber filled.’ Aileen’s surprise showed in her slack jaw. ‘Has Sellie been to the beach?’
Only thinking to set her mind at rest after Niall’s extreme reaction Celestina answered before he could say anything. ‘I didn’t go into the sea.’
Aileen turned to Niall, a question in the lift of her white eyebrows.
Annoyed, Celestina turned with a swish of petticoats that scattered sand all over the flagstones. ‘I am going upstairs.’
A burst of deep laughter hid aught Aileen might have said, laughter that followed Celestina all the way up to their chamber. She slammed the door.
Niall
‘My guidness gracious, what has gotten into her? She never acted so snippy before.’
Niall found himself grinning like a fool at Aileen, all the dread that had twisted in his gut when he saw her on the edge of the waves had gone, leaving a shaft of hope in its place. He felt almost happy, an emotion he had lost touch with early in his marriage.
‘She’s annoyed, Aileen, and the blame is mine. Like yerself, I was worried when I saw her standing at damn near the same spot where I found her in that morning. Loon that I am, what did I do but throw Sellie over my shoulder and cart her back to the cliff top on my back? She didnae take kindly to being treating like a sack of flour. But do ye see, Aileen, that all of us are the reason she now has a temper and the words to express it.’
Acting on impulse, he burled his auld nurse around as he might in a Scots country dance and was shoved away, leaving her standing before him, hands on her hips and panting for breath. ‘Can ye see what that tells me? She’s becoming more Scots than Selkie, and isn’t that a guid thing?’
Swinging round on his heel he faced the stairs then halted abruptly, the most essential part he had yet to mention bursting from his lips, ‘Have ye got her skin safe where nae one but yerself is liable to find it?’
‘Dinnae worry about that. I have all of that well in hand. Only yerself kens I have her Selkie skin, and only myself kens where it’s hidden.’
‘That’s perfect, it’s our secret, and that’s how I want it to stay.’ He frowned at her, some might say glowered, but that’s how important it was to him. ‘I’m thinking we’re liable to have a visit from the McDonall soon, wondering why I sent for his priest—a mistake on my part. When he gets here, not a word, not a whisper or hint about Selkies. I might be his son, but the clan has always come first, and I dinnae want him sticking his neb in and spoiling my plans. He will have his mind set on securing a well dowered lassie for my bride, and ye will have to admit that’s not Sellie.’
Aileen nodded. ‘Aye, he has always had his eye on the money. The McDonall has nae enough imagination to see the gift Sellie will bring. She’s like magical. Though I hate to bring it up, there’s nae guarantee we would have discovered Gordon and Flora’s treachery but for her. The thefts had been going on a while, yet we didnae discover the truth until after Sellie arrived.’
‘I’ve given her a ring as an outward sign of my promise. Mayhap I should have given her the ring before taking her to my bed, but I’m only a man and I couldnae resist the Selkie magic ye told us about. And it wasnae until I was lumping her up the path that it dawned on me that she might already be carrying my bairn.’ He grinned sheepishly, aware of his own ignorance, and then asked, ‘Can half Selkie, half human bairns swim? That’s something ye might think on while yer seeing the lasses washed and organising hot water for the bathing tub.’
Upstairs in the master’s chamber he found Sellie sprawled on their bed, face down amongst the pillows. He walked to the other side of the large bed and flung himself down on the edge opposite her. ‘I hope yer not crying bonnie lass. I promise ye, I didnae mean to bring ye to tears.’ He tucked her hair behind her ear to reveal her face. The breeze down in the bay had tangled the long strands and it suddenly occurred to him that he should find a maid to tend to her so her hair could be braided and kept back from her face during the day.
Her pupils were huge, dark in her face, and though he saw no tears, her long eyelashes clumped together as if she had been crying as she ran up the stairs and slammed doors. ‘I am thinking, only,’ she whispered, and though her tears had stopped, he heard the echoes of pain in her voice.
‘Eh, bonnie lass, I wouldn’t like to hear that ye were thinking of leaving me.’ He forked his hand into the hair growing above her temple. ‘I’ll apologise again if it would help, for in God’s truth, I couldn’t bear to lose ye.’
Leaning closer he kissed her eyelids, both of them, for she rolled her head until it dipped back into the feather pillow to look at him and he kissed them again, unable to face the hurt he saw there in the sea-blue depths—so much hurt, so much pain. Surely he hadnae been so cruel, but what he saw in her large pupils was hard to accept, he needed to ask the question, ‘Do ye hate me lass?’
‘Nae it’s only that I’m confused. I gif you my word, I don’t want t
o leave.’
‘That’s one problem solved. And here is the truth of it lass, when I saw ye standing on the beach, with all the seabirds wheeling overhead, and the beasts, seals, barking as if calling to ye, I thought ye might choose yer own world over mine, and I didnae think I could bear Inverbrevie Keep without ye in it—by my side. It never felt like a home until ye arrived. My wife, Flora, well she wasnae a warm woman, not with me anyway. It was an arranged marriage and, as we found out, she and Gordon had been lovers before I married her.’
He cupped her chin and ducked in for a quick kiss. ‘I never loved her. I wanted to please my father, and the only guid thing to come of it is the lasses, and I couldn’t wish them away.’ He lifted her hand and kissed the ring he had but lately slipped on her finger. ‘It will work out better for us. We care for each other. Aye, I threw ye over my shoulder and carried ye up from the beach, but ye have understand that I didnae want ye to come to any harm.’
‘Ye care?’
I certainly do. That’s why I’m going to undress ye and carry ye through to the bathing tub. I dinnae ken how ye feel, the sand thrown up round my legs is feeling pretty scratchy and I wouldn’t mind washing it off, that’s if ye dinnae mind sharing.’
‘I dinnae mind, for I care.’
He began loosening her laces, removing her bodice even as he wondered if Sellie was truly aware what care meant, but that didnae matter, he would teach her.
He was thankful they hadnae overfilled the tub since he didnae want to be walking through puddles when he lifted her out the bath, but for now he was about to slide her into the tub. ‘Feet first, tell me if the water’s too hot for ye. I can put some cauld in.’
‘It’s fine, Niall. Put me down,’ she said, though she didnae uncross her arms, keeping her breasts covered as if he hadnae seen them before, and pulled her knees up to tease. He handed her the soap. After her hair, the breasts she tried to hide from him were the feature that had first caught his eye, and he remembered covering her nakedness with his plaid to hide her from cruel eyes.
Bride From the Sea Page 9
