Glenna ignored his question. “If we found her sealskin, we could keep her.”
Diarmid added the fish to the kettle. “Why would we want to do that? She might have a home, a family.”
“She might not.”
He set his hand on her thin shoulder. “Now, lass, ye have a family. You’re a MacDonald right enough. We claim ye as our own, even if—”
“Even if my mother died, and my father refused me? Nay, this isn’t about me,” Glenna said without rancor. Still, she straightened the ragged plaid over her thin gown and looked again at the sleeping lass. “She looks like a seal, all sleek and dark and clean.”
“Does she, now?” Diarmid asked. “Then she’s not a MacDonald?”
Glenna stroked a lock of the woman’s long dark hair. “Nay. We’re all russet, or golden, or mousy brown. She’s dark as a seal, with skin like new milk.”
Diarmid dropped a handful of wild onions into the pot. “Aye, well, the seals were making a terrible din this morning when the laird found her.”
“What if they were calling to her, trying to bring her home, but she was hurt, and then the laird found her . . .” She paused. “Oh, Diarmid, what if the seals sent her as a gift? What if she’s meant as a bride for the new laird?”
“What are ye blethering on about, child?”
“He needs a wife, doesn’t he?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“They’d make a good match, have bonny bairns.”
Diarmid put down the ladle and turned to her. “Wee one, she might not even wake,” he said gently. “Now, go and fetch me some cockles for the kettle.”
Glenna hesitated, staring down at the bruises on the lass’s pale face. She was so soft, so pure, and her dark hair swirled around her like the waves at night. “A selkie,” she whispered again and picked up a bucket and shovel by the door. Would it do any harm to have a wee look about for her sealskin while she gathered cockles? Glenna hurried toward the rocks.
She was a selkie. Glenna hadn’t been as sure of anything in all her thirteen years. It was certainly the most exciting thing that had ever happened at Dunbronach, and one didn’t reject a gift from the sea when it appeared on your doorstep.
CHAPTER NINE
Malcolm strode back down the beach, but this time his clan followed him. He lengthened his stride, moved faster. They ran to keep up.
“Is something amiss, Laird?” William asked, keeping pace with Malcolm.
“Not at all. I simply wish to check on our visitor,” Malcolm said.
William passed the comment back along the line of MacDonalds following the laird.
“Is it your Mistress Martin?” Fergus demanded, scurrying to catch up, almost breathless.
“No. She’s a stranger,” Malcolm said tersely. He felt his skin heat. It wasn’t a complete lie. It just wasn’t the full truth.
“The lass is a stranger!” The whisper flew from one MacDonald to the next.
Glenna MacDonald was coming the other way, toward him, carrying a wooden bucket. She was said to be his half-brother’s child, though Cormag had refused to acknowledge her as his own. Glenna was simply part of the clan. Her red hair was tangled around her freckled face, and her feet and clothes were thick with wet sand. She set the pail down and waited for him to reach her. He stopped before her, and so did all the MacDonalds behind him.
“There’s only one kind of lass I know that comes from the sea,” Glenna said. “She’s a selkie, isn’t she, Laird? Are ye going to keep her?”
“A selkie!” The sibilant word made its way through the clan, but no one laughed. “Ah, that explains it!” Dougal said. Malcolm stared at the child. She rolled her eyes as if he were daft. More magic, more superstition. He should correct her, correct them all, but if they knew the truth . . . He stayed silent.
“What mischief are ye about now, Glenna MacDonald?” Fergus asked her.
She folded her arms over her chest. “It’s not mischief. If Malcolm Ban can find her sealskin, he can keep her forever. She’s very bonny.”
“She’s bonny!” William informed the gathered crowd. A sigh rose like a rush of wind.
“She’s just a woman, and a badly injured one. We know nothing about her,” Malcolm said. Frustration rose in his breast. What if she woke, told the clan who she was—a terrible MacLeod? “Has she spoken?” he asked Glenna stiffly.
She shook her tangled head. “Nay, she sleeps still. Diarmid said she might sleep for a whole day, or a week, or forever. Would you be sad, Laird?”
Malcolm thought of the beautiful, bruised face, the long, slender limbs, and the MacLeod plaid she’d come wearing. He would indeed. “Of course,” he said. “It is our duty to help her if we can and make certain that she goes home safely to her own kin.”
“He’s not going to keep her!” the cry went up. This time the sigh was full of sorrow and disbelief.
“He might still,” Glenna insisted, peering around Malcolm and William to regard her kin. “He just needs to find her sealskin.” The clan edged forward to hear more, another fairy story, a legend that would solve all the problems of every MacDonald—if it were true.
Malcolm walked on. He hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps before Glenna caught up with him again.
“Where would she hide it?” she piped eagerly. “Where would you hide something so precious?”
“Sensible people keep their prized possessions in a bank, or a safe, or a lockbox,” Malcolm said. He looked at Diarmid’s wee hut. His belly was tight with nerves, half afraid she might be dead, or sitting up and telling Diarmid who she was. He needed to see her alone, warn her not to speak her name aloud, but there were a dozen people following him. He imagined them tearing her limb from limb because she was a MacLeod. He’d never known a less threatening enemy than the injured woman tucked up in Diarmid’s bed, but to them—
He stopped so suddenly that William crashed into his back, and Fergus crashed into William, and the whole line of MacDonalds folded together like a lady’s fan. Glenna skipped out of the way and waited. Malcolm smoothed a hand over his neck cloth.
“I will go in alone,” he said sternly. “She might be frightened by so many folk all at once.”
“Nonsense,” Beitris said, moving past him with a saffron-colored dress draped over her arm. “I’ve got a gown for her, and she’ll need a woman to help her with that, and . . . other things.” Though she was at least sixty, Beitris MacDonald blushed like a rose but looked at him sternly. “I’ll go and see that she’s decent before ye come in, Laird.”
Malcolm blushed himself. “Diarmid is blind, and I am—I am a gentleman.” But Beitris shook her head.
“Still, there are things—female things ye can’t be part of.”
He found himself watching as the door closed firmly behind Beitris.
He held his breath as he watched the portal, waiting for a scream. Beitris returned almost at once with Diarmid.
Malcolm’s belly cleaved to his spine with dread. “How is she?”
“She hasn’t woken, but she’s breathing, and she’s warm now. Those are good signs,” Diarmid said.
“She’s a pretty wee thing,” Beitris said.
“I told you she was,” Glenna added.
“I’ll go in,” Malcolm said and slipped into the hut, shutting the door firmly behind him.
She lay as he’d left her, motionless, bruised, covered to the chin with his plaid. Malcolm approached the cot, sank down on the stool next to her. He took her hand, rubbed her knuckles with his thumb. “Wake up, lass,” he said softly. “You’re safe—I swear it.”
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Aye, she was bonny—the bonniest lass he’d ever seen—even bruised with her eyes closed. He wondered what color her eyes were—probably some shade of aqua blue, like a tide pool in the sun, or dark like the sea at night, or blue as the sky above the ocean.
Her eyes opened so suddenly his breath caught in his throat. They were gray and as soft as spring rain. He stared at her as those e
yes darted around the room, over the walls, the ceiling, the hanging bundles of herbs, and stopped on him. He felt her gaze like a touch, and a shiver rushed through him, followed by a wash of heat. Her fingers tightened on his.
“You’re awake.” He bent closer. “What’s your name, lass?” he whispered. “You can tell me, but you mustn’t tell anyone else, not even Diarmid—do you understand?” She was staring at him still, her eyes so wide he could see his own reflection in the depths. She didn’t reply, and he realized he’d spoken in English. He repeated his words in Gaelic. “Tell me your name,” he coaxed.
Still she didn’t answer. Her brow furrowed, and she winced as the gesture tugged at the bruises on her face. She raised her hand to her forehead and made a little sound of surprise, or pain, or both. He squeezed the hand he was holding, gently, to soothe her.
“Och, lass, you have nothing to fear,” he said softly. “I’m Malcolm Ban MacDonald, laird of the MacDonalds of Dunbronach. Do you know what that means?”
There was no flare of hatred in her gaze—there was only confusion. Her frown deepened. She shook her head, winced, and reached toward the lump on her skull. He let go of the hand he was holding to catch the other. “You have a bump on the back of your head,” he told her. “Probably better not to touch it.” He put his palm against her forehead, checked for fever, but she was as cool as the sea.
“It hurts,” she murmured. “My head.” He read fear in her eyes, and he wanted to soothe it.
“Aye,” he said softly. “Did you fall?”
“I don’t know,” she said, frightened. “I can’t remember.” She tried to sit up but gasped in pain. He put his hand on her shoulder, pressed her back onto the rough pillow.
“Best to lie still for now, I think. You’re safe, lass. I understand if you’re unwilling to speak, but you can tell me your name, and I’ll do my best to get you home safe,” he said. But she shook her head again. Her gray eyes were wide with panic now. She clutched his hand like a lifeline, searched his face.
“I don’t know my name. I don’t know anything at all,” she cried. Her nails pierced his skin. “Who am I? How did I get here?”
It was Malcolm’s turn to shake his head. He felt relief rush through him and felt guilty at that, but if she had no memory of anything, not even her own name, she couldn’t say she was a MacLeod if anyone asked her. It made her safe—but perhaps it also meant she was in grave danger too. If he was in Edinburgh, he’d summon a physician for her, a surgeon, someone who knew what to do, but she was here at Dunbronach, alone and vulnerable among her enemies, with no one but a blind healer to tend her injuries.
But she had him, and he would protect her with his own life. She closed her eyes, and a tear slid out from beneath her lashes, more salt water to soak her hair.
He squeezed her hand again, and she clung to him. Her fear took his breath away. Even if the people of Dunbronach didn’t need him, this woman did. Like him, she was an outsider, and that made them friends, not enemies.
Would she remember if he spoke the name MacLeod out loud? He hesitated. What if she did remember then, started screaming, injured herself further? There would be time to tell her later, he decided. “I cannot tell you, lass,” he said, being honest. Not now. He let her hand go, tucked it under the plaid. “I wish I could.”
CHAPTER TEN
She remembered the feeling of water against her skin, of being weightless in a shimmering world.
She knew how the cold shock would feel as she dove deep.
She could remember the light above her, visible through the wavering current, and the darkness below, and the shadows of creatures moving close and darting away again.
She remembered figures dancing, faces in firelight, the sound of bagpipes playing a reel.
But she did not know her own name.
It hurt to think.
She was certain the people around her were strangers, every one of them unknown to her. Except him—Malcolm Ban MacDonald. She had looked deep into the kind green eyes of the man who’d held her hand, read concern there. His grip was warm and firm, the only real thing in a world where she knew nothing but pain and darkness. She hadn’t wanted to let go of him.
What’s your name? Why couldn’t she remember even that, so small a thing? She didn’t know him either. She’d looked at his red-gold hair, as thick and wavy as windblown sand, but he was a stranger. Malcolm Ban MacDonald. His name meant nothing to her, though the earnest light in his green eyes suggested he hoped it did. He had fine, gentle eyes, but with strength behind them, intelligence. Those eyes suggested he was a good man—she knew that instinctively, felt he was a man she could trust. How could she know that, and nothing else?
He’d looked away when the door opened, and the spell was broken. An older woman entered the wee cott, and Malcolm MacDonald had risen to his feet at once. He let go of her hand, and she felt the loss of him keenly, the only person on earth she knew. “I’ll leave you in Beitris’s care, lass,” he’d said gently, and she watched him go.
Beitris MacDonald’s lined face was kind, her eyes curious. She tended her as gently as a mother. She held out a saffron gown and moved to take the shirt and plaid. She clutched them to her chest, refused to let them go.
“’Tis the laird’s shirt, lass,” Beitris told her. “Ye weren’t wearing anything but a night shift when he found ye, though it was a fine one trimmed with lace. Your folk must be wealthy.”
Were they wealthy, her folk? She tried to picture them, and where she belonged, but there was nothing.
“How is our patient?” another voice asked, and she looked up as a white-haired man entered the cott. She gripped the shirt tighter still, but Beitris patted her hand.
“This is Diarmid. Ye need not fret about dressing in front of him. He’s blind,” Beitris told her.
Diarmid looked hurt. “I may be blind, but I still ken a pretty lass when one is before me.”
“How’s that, old man?” Beitris asked.
“She smells nice, for one thing. Her skin is as soft as rose petals, and she made soft, sweet, wee sounds in her sleep,” he said. “There are many ways to see the world.”
“How did I get here?” she asked them.
“Och, the laird found you in the surf, tangled in the kelp. Did ye fall into the water somehow? There’s an old tale about a laird who tied his wife to a rock, hoped she’d drown when the tide came in and he’d be rid of her scolding tongue, but she was rescued and returned to her own kin. Is that what happened to you?”
Was it? She searched her mind, but it was like looking into an empty cupboard. The only man she knew was the braw, golden-haired one with the green eyes. Malcolm Ban MacDonald. She practiced his name in her mind, held it like a lifeline.
She plucked at the plaid that covered her, red, black, and green, utterly unfamiliar, though she knew what a plaid was. She clung to that scrap of information.
“I’ve a salve for yer bruises,” Diarmid said, approaching.
Beitris took the wee pot from him. “Diarmid’s wife was our healer, but she died of the Sickness.” Her fingers were warm and careful as she applied the ointment. It was sharp scented and familiar. It reminded her of—she frowned, struggling to part the mists, to see something of her past.
“Are you a selkie?”
She turned to look at the child who stood at the foot of the cot. The girl’s hair was a gull’s nest of tangles, and her bright green eyes shone through a sheen of dust and freckles.
“Och, Glenna, ye gave me a turn,” Beitris said, looking at the girl. “How did ye get in here? The laird said no one was to enter so the lass could have her peace.”
“I came through the byre,” the girl replied with a shrug, her eyes fixed on the woman in the bed.
“Well, ye can go right out again, and stop asking daft questions. Of course she’s not a selkie,” Beitris said.
“She came from the sea, didn’t she? The seals brought her, watched over her until the laird claimed her. And she w
as dressed in lace. I think she’s meant to be a bride for our laird, since he’s sore in need of one.”
A wedding. She recalled something about a wedding . . .
Beitris flushed. “Bah—’tis just an old legend, child. The blow to her poor head was a bad one. She doesn’t know who she is just now, but she’s not a selkie. That’s just a story.”
Glenna frowned. “’Tis not what Dougal says. He said when I am old enough, I can find a selkie husband if I stand in the sea and let seven tears fall into the water. He’ll come for me, claim me, and then I will have a home and a husband of my own.”
Diarmid chuckled. “She has ye there, Beitris. Some legends are true enough, child, some are not—now, come and eat your soup and leave our guest to her rest.”
“But did you come from the sea?” Glenna persisted.
She saw water in her mind, deep and dark . . . “I don’t know. I think I must have,” she murmured.
The girl looked triumphant. “I knew it. ’Tis why you don’t know your name—you haven’t got a human one. We shall have to call you something. The laird canna wed you without a name.”
“We could call her Ronat, I suppose,” Diarmid said, ladling fragrant fish soup into wooden bowls as easily as if he could see. “It means seal.”
“Ronat.” Glenna rolled it over her tongue. “Ronat.”
Beitris rolled her eyes. “Why not something plain and sensible? Mary, perhaps, or Margaret?” She looked at her patient. “Those are good Scots names for a lass—might one of them be your own true name?”
She didn’t recognize them, so she shook her head.
“Then can we call ye Ronat?” Glenna asked.
She hesitated, tried the word in her mind. Ronat.
“’Tis true that we’ll need to call you something, lass, if only to be polite when addressing ye,” Diarmid said, and pressed a steaming bowl into Beitris’s hands with a spoon to feed her patient. “Will ye sup with us, Ronat? There’s no bannock, I’m afraid.”
She nodded. “Tapadh leibh,” she said, automatically thanking him in Gaelic. “Ronat,” she whispered aloud. “Ronat.”
When a Laird Finds a Lass Page 5
