Niall
He felt that at least one of his worries was over when Aileen handed him the box she had dug up. He had worried that she might just have hurriedly buried the Selkie skin under the earth and let it rot. After all, without her skin, Sellie could perish in the sea.
He loved her too much to let that happen.
‘A-a-a-h, God.’ The sigh ripped away part of his soul. Sellie was his woman, his life, and he wished he had managed to get her with child if only to keep her with him. Mayhap he had. How could she tell? How could Selkies tell? He tucked the wee box inside his plaid, the same one he had wrapped Sellie in to carry her up to the Keep from the beach. He remembered the feel of her slight body in his embrace. The lass had filled out since she was washed ashore at Inverbrevie.
All he had to do now was find her before she went back into the sea.
‘Laird, Laird, I must speak with ye.’ He turned as Jean came running into the Hall.
‘I’ve nae time to talk now,’ he growled. ‘I have to go looking for Sellie.’
She rushed to his side, her hair tousled as if she had been tugging at the ends. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell ye. I came in but ye were nae place to be found.’ She gasped for breath before grabbing his arm. ‘Sellie’s gone off with the lad I’m walking out with; she threatened him with a Skean dhu and made him take her somewhere.’
Good grief. ‘Did she say where she wanted him to take her?’ God, please not the sea.
Jean ducked her head, eyes downcast as if ashamed, and she kept her voice low as she muttered, ‘I dinnae ken all. They spoke in another tongue, but she mentioned a ship, the San Miguel. My lad, Luis, was shipwrecked on it. So were the two dead men. He had to hide before his lieutenant killed him too. The lieutenant was angry because they had helped themselves to gold from the wreck. Luis said the lieutenant wants to keep all the gold and treasure for himself.’
The hairs on the back of Niall’s neck rose even as his neck flushed with anger. ‘He told ye all this and ye kept it secret?’
‘I love him, Laird and I didnae want to lose him. Ye had just hanged Gordon. I was scared. Besides, ye had a house full of folk—the McDonall and all—as well as yon lassie whau ran off with master Jack. I just wanted a wee bit of time, especially with the priest here. I thought Luis might marry me.’
‘Jean, when Aileen hears what ye have been up to, ye’ll be fortunate if she lets ye back into the Keep.’ He took hold of her wrist. ‘If ye want me to stick up for ye, then ye will come with me and show me which way they went.’
He headed through to the back of the Keep. ‘First the stables.’
‘I dinnae ken how to ride, Laird.’
‘If ye ken what’s guid for ye then ye can get up behind me and show me the way.’ It didnae help his mood that the stables were empty and he had to saddle his own horse, but soon he had mounted his favourite beast.
‘Right, Jean, give me yer hand and put yer foot atop mine,’ he told her.
She was nimble enough, he’d give her that. As soon as she was perched behind him, her arms round his waist, he grumbled, ‘Hold on tight. I dinnae intend to waste time. Where to, Jean? I cannae wait to bring my Selkie bride back where she belongs.
Chapter 21
Niall
Later he heard, ‘Keep to the cliff top, Laird. The wreck’s up at the next bay where the sea cave is.’
Niall almost wished Jean would stop talking now, the way she interrupted his thoughts as he tried to work out a way to persuade Sellie not to leave him.
‘I hope she hasn’t hurt Luis. He was scared of her. He thought she was a ghost.’
Niall glanced over his shoulder. Jean was as bad at making up stories as Aileen. A ghost? Nae one could possibly look at Sellie with her bright colouring, red lips, creamy skin beautiful gleaming black hair—all of it his—and think her a ghost. If only he could persuade her how much she was needed—not merely by him, but by his bairns. In the last few weeks, she had been more of a mother to his daughters than his wife had ever been. Naught ghostly in that. He settled for reassuring Jean with, ‘Ach, dinnae let that bother ye. Sailors are always superstitious.’
On his own he would have dug in his heels and set his mount into a gallop, or a canter at least, but with Jean desperately hanging onto him he’d had to settle for a plod. The best he could do was keep his eyes sharp as he searched for Sellie and Luis.
The sun had begun to drop down toward the horizon when Niall noticed two dark spots beyond the rise they were climbing. ‘Hang on, Jean. I believe we’ve found them.’
At last he dug his heels into his mount’s flanks and set off with Jean squealing as the speed made her bounce awkwardly behind him. Past caring, Niall realised the end was in sight—a moment they all could have been saved if Jean had come to him earlier.
Secrets had become the bane of his life, and he had one more mystery to solve—the reason Sellie had been so desperate to find that ship, desperate enough that she had been reduced to threatening Jean’s beau with his Skean dhu.
As it happened, the squeals werenae confined to Jean. Sellie let out a few of her own. He might have laughed except that his wee love sounded so frightened. He whipped up his mount’s pace. They were too far away for the others to recognise them; he would get closer then shout. And he did. ‘Sellie, dinnae run. It’s only me and Jean.’
They kept running.
‘Stop, Sellie. Ye will hurt yerself, love,’ he called, right on their heels now.
Then she tripped.
Niall hauled on the reins and came to a stop. Swinging his leg over the horse’s neck, he slid to the ground at a run. Luis stood at a distance, his chest heaving, while Niall growled at him—‘Dinnae just stand there, lad, help Jean down off the horse’—barking out the instruction as he lifted Sellie up into his arms. At first he just held her close to his heart and simply breathed. Naught had ever felt better, for in truth she was why his heart kept beating,
He could feel Sellie sobbing. Her tears soaked his shirt and he didnae give a damn. He would bathe in them if he hadnae already discovered a way to make them stop. He kissed her, and within moments she kissed him back. Eventually, he supped the tears from her skin and finished drying her face by smoothing his thumbs beneath her eyes where tears clung to her lashes.
‘Eh, lass, never leave me again. My life is naught without ye. I love ye. My lasses love ye. We cannae bear to lose ye now that we’ve found ye.’
Red lights gleamed in her hair, a reflection of the sun sinking into the ocean as she lifted her face to him, mouth slightly open. Her tear-filled eyes shone, and Niall told himself he recognised hope in her expression. The same emotion filled his heart.
He had nae resistance where Sellie was concerned.
Niall kissed her again and again, without a care that they were observed by the others. ‘Sellie, bonnie lass,’ he murmured against her cheek. ‘I love ye. Stay lass, dinnae go back to the sea. Every breath I take is only because ye exist.’
He sank onto the turf and, hand behind her neck, pulled her face toward him to kiss her forehead. ‘I love ye so much.’ He paused for breath, robbed of air by his emotions. ‘I cannae let ye go back to the sea without yer Selkie skin, so I’ve brought it for ye.’
He pulled the box Aileen had given him out from under his plaid. God help him, he was about to send her away. ‘See here, Aileen put it in the box and buried it. She didnae want ye to leave us either, for we all love ye, but me most of all.’
Celestina
Celestina felt overwhelmed by such an outpouring of love, yet at the same moment was stung with guilt. That he had brought her old silk shift, still believing it to be the Selkie skin, pierced her heart as if she had fallen on the Skean dhu stolen from the muniment room. ‘I am—’
The words were hardly out of her mouth, when Niall pulled Celestina into his lap and she was glad of it, for she did not know what to say. Strangely, she had never thought this day would arrive, or that the San Miguel would be found … had m
ade no plans, had not wanted to once Niall saved her life—something she had forgotten when she found her brother’s sword in the muniment room.
She pushed the box back into his hands and winced, forgetting the cut beneath the binding. ‘Nae, I … that’s not what I want. Take me home, Niall. We can talk there. I am so tired.’
‘And nae wonder; ye lost a lot of blood then went scrambling up the coast.’ He knelt then stood without putting her down from his arms—so strong, she thought, loving him for his strength of body and mind. Soon, she would discover whether his love for her was strong enough to forgive her intentional deceit.
Carrying her to his patiently waiting horse, reins on the sod—excellently trained but without any fear of its master, an attitude Celestina understood well. Though she had felt anger against Niall when she saw Miguel’s sword, she’d never feared him.
‘Jean, I’m sorry lass, but ye will have to walk back with Luis while I take Sellie home with me.’
For Celestina there was comfort in feeling his voice rumble in his chest and the strong beat of his heart beneath the hand she had sliced on the blade of Miguel’s sword. He had always said Toledo steel was the best in the world but, for her, the closeness she shared with Niall was worth more than all the gold in the world, or at least all gold on the San Miguel. Opening her palm, she slid it under Niall’s plaid and pressed it flat, ignoring the pain, as if his warmth could heal her flesh.
Celestina could have fallen asleep in his arms with slow sway of his mount’s gait rocking her as she snuggled against Niall’s shoulder. His breath was warm on her face, like a loving whisper that gave her a sense of all being right in her small world—a world unlike any she had experienced on the San Miguel. Her world had shrunk to Niall and Celestina.
When Niall did speak, it was as if his voice pierced her protective shield—mayhap because the hurt he experienced prickled across her skin. ‘Do ye ken that when I saw all yer blood, I thought ye might have hurt yerself to escape me because Aileen and I had hidden yer Selkie skin? Such a thought wrung fear through my heart, with the notion that ye could believe I would ever hurt ye, lass.’ Still holding the reins, he placed one hand on her knee and his thumb brushed back and forth. ‘I ken yer asleep,’ he whispered, voice rough. ‘I wouldn’t tell ye otherwise, for I couldn’t bear ye to go through the same nightmares that haunt me. I love ye so much, darlin’. If I lost ye, I feel my life wouldn’t be worth living.’
If her heart wasnae already hurting so much, it would have stopped.
Pretending to sleep, she lay against him, her mind racing for some way she could pay him back. Aye, the gold and other treasures would solve all his problems and could be her dowry, as long as he did not look upon it as a bribe.
He already had her heart and, beyond that and the gold, she had naught else to give Niall.
Chapter 22
Niall
Back at the Keep, he would have carried Sellie up to their chamber, but she stopped him, saying, ‘Nay, take me to the muniment room. I need to tell ye why I ran away.’
‘Whatever ye say, bonnie lass.’ He wasnae sure he wanted to hear her reasons, because he couldn’t see how the fault was anyone’s but his. However, he had broad shoulders, and he had been in battle, had fended off the worst anyone could throw at him and come through if not exactly whole then still breathing and walking. His personal life had been worse, at least until Sellie had come into it.
Sellie, with her Selkie magic.
From the first night he took her into his bed, he had felt her magic healing him.
He sat her down on the chair he had given his father when he’d set the old man right then quickly lit the candles from the one Aileen had left on the entrance hall table. ‘Can I get ye a shawl, or a plaid to keep ye warm. I’m afraid I haven’t cleaned up. All I wanted was to find ye and bring ye back.’
She placed her hand on his arm, her touch warm, though slightly tentative. ‘I don’t need a shawl, I just need ye to sit here and listen to me.’
Not wanting to face her across the scattering of parchment, inkpots and quill pens on the table, he dragged his chair from behind the expanse of carved wood and placed it close to hers. When he sat down, his knees touched hers and he didnae pull back, needing the connection as much as he needed to breathe. Then he looked her square in the eye and said, ‘Tell me.’
‘Did ye notice the sword on the floor?’
‘The one with yer blood on? Oh, aye, I noticed. It made me feel sick to see yer blood drying on the blade. I couldn’t imagine what ye had been doing with it …’ Leaping back to that moment, that pain, he dragged his hand over his face from brow to chin, much as he dragged his question from his mind. ‘… unless, ye meant to hurt yerself.’
‘Nay, I would not do that. I picked up the sword then dropped it, and it fell from one hand and sliced the other.’ He took a huge breath, about to speak, but she wasnae done. She paused, swallowed then said, ‘Do ye want to know why I picked up the sword? I recognised the blade, for it belonged to my brother.’
She had him confused. He shook his head and told her, ‘Sellie, that cannae be. I didnae find it in the sea. The sword belonged to a Spaniard who was fighting in France.’
Somehow her cut hand was on his knee, and she didnae act as if it hurt. Her gaze was intense as his reflection in the flare of candlelight filled her eyes, as if she had swallowed up all that he was, heart and soul. His thigh muscles tightened hard against the soft press of her fingertips smoothing his skin.
‘I want ye to listen to me. It’s not easy, what I have to say, but I have to tell the truth. I’m not a Selkie.’
Niall’s breathed in through his mouth;, the air felt thick as if he could take a bite out of it, chew it up and spit it out, turn it around like the words in his ear. His world and everything he believed became as naught.
Sellie shushed him, though he could swear, stunned as he was, that he’d made nae attempt to speak. ‘The inscription on the sword, “M del V” is my brother’s initials, Miguel del Vargas. My name is Celestina del Vargas, and my brother died fighting in France. After that, there was only myself and mi padre, that is why my father, Capitan Xavier del Vargas, took me with him on his caravel when he joined the Armada.’
Silence seemed his only option. The story she had begun reminded him of the ones Aileen told—none of them real, not even the one about Selkies that he had hung his heart on.
‘My father was washed overboard during the storm. The lieutenant, el Teniente, sent me a note to inform me. My maid Rosalina said the crew were blaming us—women should not be on ships—we were unlucky. The San Miguel was being tossed around by the waves. I could not walk in a straight line but, with my father gone, the ship belonged to me. I was responsible, so I went on deck. Daft, as ye would say, but I decided it better to drown in the waves like my father than be trapped below decks. Like mi padre, Rosalina was thrown about when a swell caught the ship, and she slid across the deck and fell overboard. No one attempted to help her, but then she was only a female.’ Without pausing for breath, she went on speaking, and Niall found he didnae want to stop her. ‘All of their eyes were on me, staring, hating. I could see they wanted me to follow my father and Rosalina into the Atlantic storm; and I knew that if I did not jump off the ship, el Teniente would toss me into the water. That was when I made up my mind to strip off my heavy beaded skirts and bodice. My actions mesmerised them. I pulled off my headdress. It was heavy, studded with pearls and jewels. If I could I would have thrown it at el Teniente’s mocking face, instead I threw it at Luis, Jean’s beau, who was scrabbling on the deck, picking up pearls and jewels. I still wish I had kicked him. Instead, before they could reach me, I climbed over the rail wearing only my silk shift and jumped into the sea.’
She stopped talking; her fingers dug into his thigh as they sat staring at each other in silence. He laid his huge hand over her smaller one and lifted her palm, bloodstained binding and all, and put it to his lips, pressing a kiss on her hurt.
As for the rest—her heart, her head—they might be beyond him to heal. Nae matter, a surge of determination began rising inside him that proved he was willing to try.
‘I have something to tell ye, Sellie, that might be some consolation for what ye went through. The man whose sword was on my wall wasnae dead when I last saw him. He was taken prisoner by the French. I bought the sword from him. That way he would have a wee bit of money he could use to bribe the guards and buy a few bits and pieces for comfort. I was under the impression he might be ransomed.’
In fact, he couldn’t understand why that hadnae happened, but for now it was enough to see the change in her, see the emotions that flitted across her features, taking her beauty and moulding it into something radiant.
A man who was less aware of the way her heart was moved, would have wondered why she cried at the news, but not him. ‘We can send and find out what happened to him.’
With a lift of his eyebrows her eyes widened, showed surprise. ‘We?’ The question was brief but shaky, filled with relief and more—wonder.
‘Aye, we. Ye dinnae think I would let ye go because of a wee problem like not being a Selkie. A Spanish señorita is all the better. I nae longer have to worry about ye returning to the sea for, from what I have seen, until this moment it has not been particularly kind to ye, my bonnie lass.’
Her shoulders sagged as she reached her other hand out to caress his face, running her nails lightly over his bristles. It had been a long day, what with Isabeau Corcoran running off with his friend Jack. Aye, John Grant had solved his problem, but Niall had a feeling his friend had thrown himself into a peck of trouble.
He turned his head and sucked one of her fingertips into his mouth. ‘Ye must be tired after all that walking. Let me carry ye up to bed.’
The smile that shaped Sellie’s lips showed a lot of promise, as did the heavy sensuality of her darkly fringed eyelids. ‘I would enjoy that, Niall. I love the feel of your arms around me, and if left here I might just fall asleep in this chair.’
Bride From the Sea Page 17
