by Lily Baldwin
What felt like hours to Catarina passed, and shadow crept toward the cave. Her stomach cramped with hunger. The wind had changed. Now a cool breeze, blowing off the sea, tunneled inside to greet her. She could not remember ever being so hungry. And then she realized that was because she had never actually known true hunger. Her whole life, if she had wished for a bite to eat, all she would have done was ask any number of servants whose duty had been to do her bidding. She looked around the small, empty cave. Never had she felt so alone.
“I have never been alone,” she whispered aloud. Just as she had never known hunger, she had always lived in a castle or fortress, bustling with people who contributed in some way to her well-being. She had been Lady Ravensworth. Her stomach rumbled. The noise seemed to echo off the cave walls, mocking her fall from grace. Terror so great stole her breath. She had been born the daughter of a lord. She always knew she would marry a lord. But now she no longer could count on the protection of status and wealth. Her husband was dead. Her father was a criminal, stripped of title. Her hand flew to her lips. It had taken a desolate beach cave and a ravenous belly for her to realize the true significance of her lost nobility.
She jumped to her feet and peered out of the cave. What if something happened to Quinn? What would become of her? What would become of Nicholas? She wrung her hands, panic setting her heart to race when a shadowed figure jumped from above, filling the cave entrance.
She screamed and bolted back. Her heart lodged in her throat. She could still hear its drumming beat even after she realized she knew the intruder’s face.
Quinn dropped his game and rushed to where Catarina stood with wide eyes, her breaths coming short and quick. He took hold of her hands. “Hush, my lady. Ye’ve naught to fear. I only jumped from above. I’ll be sure to walk around the next time.”
Jerking her hands free to cover her face, she sputtered. “I have every reason to fear.”
He looked about the cave, confused. Where was the unseen danger?
“I am alone,” she said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I am alone and cold and so very hungry.” Her stomach growled to punctuate her words.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he tried to make sense of her outburst. “If ye were hungry, why did ye not make some bannock. Ye know we’ve still oat flour and water.”
She dropped her hands from her face. Her chin trembled. “I do not know how.”
He shook his head, silently cursing his short-sightedness. He squared his shoulders. “Well, that is something we will have to remedy.” He motioned for her to join him near the center of the cave. “To start, let me show ye how to light a fire so that ye’ll know how to keep out the cold. I’ll be right back.” He left the cave and gathered drift wood and dried brush. Then he returned and dropped everything in a pile on the ground.
“What’s this,” he said, noticing her arrangement of seashells and stones. Then he scanned the cave, taking in the grasses lining the floor and the scattered flowers.
“You told me to ready camp,” she said, lamely gesturing around. “I did as you asked, the only way I knew how.”
He smiled and cupped her cheek. “’Tis wonderful.”
“It is ridiculous,” she returned. “Although it did not seem so at the time.”
“We cannot know that which we’ve yet to learn. Be gentle with yerself, my lady. Ye’ve left one world for another. ‘Tis like sailing to another land. Ye cannot expect to know what it means to be Sicilian in a day.”
She smiled, and soon her smile turned to laughter. “I decorated the cave.”
His laughter mingled with hers. “A finer cave, I’ve never seen,” he said, and her laughter rang out all the louder.
Chapter Fourteen
The next day, when the gloaming hour was upon them, it was Catarina who struck the steel and flint onto the awaiting tinder. She pursed her lips and blew a slight stream of air on the orange embers until flames licked the dried bracken. She smiled with satisfaction as Quinn added dry wood.
“Now for the bannock,” she said. With confidence, she reached for the sack of flour and scooped a heaping handful into Freya’s wooden bowl. Then she shaped her hand into a ladle and scooped fresh water on top.
She smiled up at Quinn. “Now, I shall work the flour and water together with my fingers.”
“Precisely,” he said. “Yer doing very well.”
She stuck her fingertips into the mix and began to poke it around.
Quinn’s soft chuckle made her look up. “At that pace, we won’t have bannock until tomorrow’s supper. Ye can’t be afraid to get yer hands dirty.”
Catarina narrowed her eyes on the mixture like an enemy she was riding out to meet in battle. Her hands plunged into the bowl. Working her fingertips into a frenzy, she made a simple dough in no time at all. With a pleased smile, she showed Quinn her achievement.
“Well done,” he said, smiling.
“I hope they taste alright,” she said.
“Let’s see.” He reached out, taking hold of her sticky hand.
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “I am a mess.”
“Ye’re perfect,” he said before drawing one of her fingers into his mouth. Her breath hitched. Heat shot through her as he sucked the mixture away.
“Tastes good,” he said softly. Leaning back against the cave wall, he continued to stare at her.
Her mouth was too dry to speak, not that she knew what to say. She had no words for the feelings he stirred within her. She looked away and finished cooking the bannock all the while aware of his watchful eyes.
Later on, when their bellies were sated, they moved to the rear of the cave and laid down on their respective blankets, which she had intentionally set more than an arm’s length apart.
“Ye’ve done well today, my lady,” Quinn said.
She smiled her thanks, again too nervous to speak. She longed to be closer to him.
“Tell me more about your family,” she said when the silence became more nerve wracking than anything else.
“What would ye like to know?”
She wanted to know what his skin tasted of, how his lips would feel pressed hard against hers. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to force her thoughts in a new direction. “Tell me about Alec, and why he is so…so…”
“So distant?” he volunteered.
She nodded. “Yes.” Although, she thought ‘troubled’ to be a more apt description.
He pressed his lips together and laid on his back, looking up at the cave ceiling. A slow breath fled her throat as she tried to invite her racing heart to calm now that his black eyes were not fixed on her. She too laid back and closed her eyes, letting his deep voice move through her.
“Ye might not believe me when I tell ye that Alec has dreams which show him things.”
Her interest piqued, she turned on her side and looked at him. “How?”
Quinn shrugged. “He has never opened up about what actually goes on in his dreams only what they’ve revealed.”
“And what do they reveal?”
“Truth,” Quinn said. “Answers to troubling questions. His dreams have even revealed that which has yet to be told. A dream showed him the destruction of Berwick before Edward had arrived with his legions outside the city limits.”
Her eyes widened. “He foresaw the massacre?”
“In a manner of speaking. His dream did not reveal Edward’s attack, only the aftermath, the slaughter and wreckage.”
She shivered, and her heart softened toward Alec. It must be a great burden to carry so much weight within one’s soul. It was no wonder Alec seemed so cold, especially when compared to Rory.
“Is Rory as rakish as I imagine him to be?” she said.
“Rory is reckless more than anything.”
“Was he a sailor like you?”
Quinn shook his head. “Nay, he worked on the docks alongside my father. He had no wish to be trapped, as he saw it, at sea. He seldom strayed far from the city, from his friends and l
overs.”
She blushed. “Did he take many lovers.”
Quinn turned his head and looked at her. “A few,” he said.
“What about you?” she asked.
He smiled. “What about me?”
She held her breath, fighting for the courage to speak her mind. “Have you loved someone before,” she blurted at last.
“I have cared for women,” he said. “But I was a sailor and never in one place long enough for love.”
She rolled onto her back to hide the smile his answer fixed to her lips. “Were you lonely?”
Again, his deep voice flowed through her. “I missed my family, but I loved being at sea. It gets into yer soul—the power of the ocean and exploring marvelous new places. People always looked and sounded so different everywhere we went. And yet whenever we would dock for a stretch, I would see that people everywhere were actually all the same. People working, caring for their families, moving from one day to the next with mostly the same concerns, same worries, same joys. I would love for ye to see for yerself,” he said.
“Me on a ship?” she scoffed.
“What would ye say, if I asked ye to set sail with me for distant shores?”
She turned and looked at him. “Several days ago, I would have been scandalized and terrified—shamefully in that order.”
“And now?” he asked softly, reaching his hand across the great divide.
A flutter of wistful excitement coursed through her. She stretched out her arm, her fingertips grazing his. “Now, I wish I could have been with you.”
~ * ~
They remained in Catarina’s decorated cave for nearly three weeks. Quinn relished watching her increased satisfaction as her command of humble tasks grew. More than that, he enjoyed the ease of her bearing. There was a sudden lightness about her, and he knew much of her changed demeanor was because of their tranquil Eden. They had made a flower-scented hideaway, but he knew they could not stay in that place for much longer. Just that morning, he had found horse tracks in the woods where he hunted.
“Riders passed nearby during the night,” he said before biting a bannock hot off the fire.
Her shoulders tensed but only for a moment. “So we push on,” she said.
“Ye’re not upset?” he asked.
She shrugged, a sad smile curving her lips. “I know we cannot stay here forever, nor would I wish it so. Nicholas is not here. There is no true haven without him.”
Quinn dusted the crumbs off his fingers. “That settles it then. We set sail in the morning for Caithness.”
After they had settled on their separate blankets for the night, Catarina laid with her elbows beneath her head. “Tell me a story,” she whispered in the darkness. Several moments passed, and then his voice, deep but soft, reached her ears.
“When my older sister, Rose, was a lass, she used to stand on the tweed dock where the river met the tide and watch the ships come in and out of port—or so that was what she told my mum and da. But I knew the truth. She used to take me with her so that she did not feel so alone, I just five and she no older than ten. She’d let me skip rocks, though I could not roam far, mind.” He laughed softly. “I suppose my love for ships started in this way, but, as I’ve said, it was not the merchant vessels that drew my sister’s tireless gaze.”
“What did?” Catarina said.
“Love,” Quinn said simply.
Catarina’s eyes widened. She sat up to look at him, though his features were obscured by shadow. “But you said she was only ten.”
“At the time, she had no one in particular in mind,” he said, laughing again. “But one day she did confide in me. She had dreamt that love would come to her from the sea.”
Catarina lay back down and smiled at the image of a young girl staring wistfully out to sea. “What does Rose look like? Is she dark haired like you?”
“Nay, she and my youngest brother, Ian, have fiery red hair and blue eyes and both with tempers to match.”
“And is that how Rose met her husband? Did he wash up on the banks of the River Tweed?”
He did not answer straightaway, and Catarina remembered that Rose’s husband and her three daughters were all slain during the massacre. “Her husband was a carpenter and did not like the sea at all,” he said. “’Tis no surprise though. Rose does not share Alec’s queer gift of sight. Her dream was likely just that—a dream.”
Catarina smiled, her eyes feeling heavy. “Mayhap the tide will bring Rose new love.” And she drifted off to sleep lulled by the steady refrain of the North Sea.
Chapter Fifteen
Quinn eyed the teeming cliffs of Caithness, marveling at the wild beauty of crashing waves, tall caves with sharp jutting teeth, vibrant blue pools, and whirling eddies. Fragrant breezes puffed against their sail as he waited for a strip of shore upon which to land. He glanced back at Catarina. She craned her neck back, staring wide-eyed at the imposing cliffs. And then a distant rumbling broke her trance. They locked eyes.
“Horses,” Quinn said. He quickly lowered the sail. “Get down,” he told her, his voice calm yet firm. She crouched in the hull, curling into a ball. Then he tossed one of the blankets over her. “Do not move unless I tell ye to.”
The pounding of hooves grew closer. He reckoned they were just beyond the cliffs. Readying his bow, he kept his eyes fixed on the ridge above. The Sinclairs were not the only highlanders to occupy the northeasterly tip of Scotland. Anyway, he knew better than to assume the best from any unknown. The thundering drew closer to the edge. Quinn hunkered down to give the potential enemy less of a target, but just then a stag came hurtling over the side and smacked the surface of the water, creating a terrific splash. Quinn sat back on his heels in amazement, locking eyes with the lifeless stare of the large horned animal. A chorus of deep voices speaking Gaelic rang out from above, drawing his gaze an instant before several men peered over the cliff edge, their long hair catching in the wind.
One of the men called down to Quinn.
He held up his hands. “I’m afraid I do not understand what ye said.”
The biggest of the lot pulled out a crossbow and took aim at Quinn. Then in English, he said, “Before ye get any ideas, the stag is ours.”
Quinn dropped his bow and held up his hands. “I’ve no interest.”
The man narrowed his eyes. “How can ye have no interest, lowlander? Do ye not eat?”
Quinn continued to hold his hands aloft. “Aye, I do, but I reckon it would be my last meal, and I’d rather live on, if ‘tis all the same to ye lot. Ye can trust I won’t be taking what’s yers.”
“What’s yer name?”
“MacVie, Quinn MacVie.”
“Outta my way,” someone behind the men said. Then a familiar face peered down. “My eyes are conjuring ghosts. Quinn MacVie is that really ye?”
Quinn sagged with relief when he saw Hamish smiling down at him. “Aye, Hamish Sinclair. ‘Tis I.”
“I thought ye died along with the rest of those poor souls in Berwick.”
Quinn shook his head and stretched his arms wide. “Ye can see I’m still as alive as any man.”
Hamish smiled. “And glad I am for that. What about yer brothers and Rose and Roslyn.”
Quinn’s smile faded. “Only my brothers and Rose survived.”
Hamish frowned and made the sign of the cross. “Poor souls,” he said, and hung his head for several quiet moments. Then he looked up and with his next breath, Hamish asked, “But what are ye doing here? ‘Tis quite a journey ye’ve made.”
Quinn smiled. “I came to find ye.”
“Yer in trouble then,” Hamish said knowingly.
Quinn shrugged but offered no reply.
“Ye can keep yer silence but only if ye save me the trouble of taking a swim. Tie the stag to yer wee ship. In less than a quarter of a league the cliffs slope down and ye’ll find a strip of shore.”
Quinn glanced at the heap of blankets concealing Catarina. “I have something with me, somethi
ng I treasure a great deal,” he said cautiously.
“Ye’ve not to fear, my friend. Yer safe on Sinclair land. I trust my men with my life.”
Hamish’s promise lightened Quinn’s heart. He and Catarina would be able to bide their time hidden among the Sinclairs until Quinn could think of a way to clear Catarina’s name and bring the real murderer to justice; that is, if Hamish was still the decent man Quinn remembered. “Stay beneath the blankets for now,” Quinn whispered. “I wish to look Hamish in the eye to make sure he’s the same man I once knew.”
Her reply was muffled. “Do you think he could be so very altered?”
“Time changes us all, and hardship can strip away a man’s compassion. Brother Matthew told me once that apathy is only a step removed from wickedness.”
The blanket shook as Catarina chuckled. “Is this Brother Matthew a real monk?”
He reached down and pinched what he hoped was her round bottom, earning a squeal for his efforts.
Huddled in the dark, Catarina listened to the water lapping against the sides of the boat.
“The wind has picked up,” Quinn said. “I can see the shore up ahead.”
“Can I come out now,” she asked, beginning to overheat beneath the warm sun and the wool blanket.
“Stay hidden until I say, and when ye do come out try not to talk. That old tunic does little to conceal who ye really are.”
Her head bumped the side when the skiff hit sand, but she managed to swallow the subsequent groan of pain. Holding her breath, she listened to the nicker of horses and their stomping hooves.
“Quinn MacVie,” a man said.
“Hamish Sinclair, ye cannot imagine my relief to be standing here with ye.”
“Given yer leagues from home and alone in a rickety old shame of a skiff, I believe I have an idea.” His accent was very thick. She had to concentrate to understand his words.
“Now that is not entirely true,” she heard Quinn say. “I am not alone.”
