Meg thanked her heartily, clinging to the woman’s blessing even as a distant roll of thunder tried to chase it away once they were out in the street again. Duncan guided her quickly to the docks. She pulled her hood forward, keeping her head down as much as possible. Only when they passed a large boat did she look up. “Is this it?” she asked.
“Nae,” Duncan said. He looked almost longingly at the boat. While large, it was yet smaller than most of the other vessels looming on the waterfront. “This is a schooner,” he said. “‘Twould serve us well if it were ours. She’s a limber one, the schooner is. Small and fast. But that bark”—he pointed just ahead toward a three-masted vessel—“is the boat we’ll find passage on.”
Meg took in the behemoth of a ship. Its weathered wood tired, its masts worn and sluggish. Another distant roll of thunder sounded, and Meg breathed it in, letting it bolster her.
“Well,” she said. “Looks as though she’s earned her salt. Shall we?” And with that, they boarded the ship that was to take her away from this country she’d called home all her life.
But she would not think of that. Not as the rest of their party scrambled aboard. Nor as the sailors pulled in ropes, hoisted sails, and shouted to one another as the gray sky began to release its drizzle. And not as she lowered her hood for one last, unobstructed view of the rising green hills and this long sea loch pointing to its end at Cumberave somewhere in the distance.
The small schooner’s sails raised, too. A shout rose up in a familiar voice from its deck. “Good journey to ye, Duncan!” The man Angus waved his cap from its deck, and too late, Meg pulled her hood back up. His smile froze on his face then vanished altogether as he angled his head to the side, staring hard at her. The look sent a spear of nausea through her: recognition.
Keep calm. Meg dipped a small curtsy. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps he did not recognize or remember the wayward bride.
But the way he stood unmoving until the bark began to move and the port grew smaller in the distance…
Thunder clapped so close it shook her from her trance. She seated herself on a wooden crate out of the way of the flurry of activity on deck. Hours passed, snatches of the sailors’ narrative helping her to follow their course. They were out of the sea loch and into the open Irish Sea, heading into the channel between Ireland and Scotland. The wind blew hard. Phrases bandied about, anchoring her spirit: Off course. Too close to Ireland. Behind schedule.
She couldn’t sit any longer. She looked about the deck. Wasn’t there something she could do? Swab the deck, or something? The others in her party were sitting about in a circle on the deck in the twilight as Kate entertained them with some account. Jimmy, whose back was turned to her, must have felt her stare. He turned and rose, crossing the deck in his steady, sure way.
“What ails ye, lass?” Jimmy strode in front of her, polishing his bottle with his plain brown jacket as he did.
“‘Tis nothing,” Meg said. And wished she could believe it. She fell into step with him, walking the deck. “Did ye find a new pearl?” A pearl fisher all his days, he often said the real treasures were the words of life scratched out upon his scroll, copied from the scriptures. The true pearls.
“Aye,” he said. “Listen to this.” He lifted the bottle’s cap and reached a finger in, removing a worn scroll. Handing her the bottle, he unrolled the paper and read, “I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.” His eyes moving over the paper as he read it again silently to himself. “What a thing.”
He was a man of few words, Thistle Jimmy, and Meg tried to piece together what he might be thinking.
The thunder grew nearer as the ship carried them into a gray sky roiling with storm clouds. “Night will come, Meg MacNaughton. Ye know that more than anyone.” He crossed his arms, lifting his chin in a gesture toward the clouds. “I’m thinkin’ on that song the scripture speaks of. How the dark doesn’t have to snatch it away.”
There was so much Meg would not “call to remembrance.” But the steady cadence of Jimmy’s voice nudged her to brave the waters of the past. His words knocked at her heart, asking for her to open the door even a crack.
“Here,” he said, rolling the scroll and tucking it into the bottle she held. He put the cap back on it.
“Shall I hold it for ye, Jimmy? For the voyage?” She ran her thumb across the etchings on the bottle. SPERO, it said around its mouth, each letter encompassed in wending Celtic swirls. Jimmy liked to tell the story of the trade he’d made with a scholar in Edinburgh to find out the word’s meaning. He’d played his fiddle and regaled the man’s handful of university students with tales of the river. And in return, the professor had interpreted the bottle’s intricate markings. Monastic carvings from the likes of Ireland, hundreds of years before. Hope, it said in Latin. A fragile thing Meg hardly dared think of.
“Aye,” Jimmy said to her. “Hold on to it for me. For good. I’ve carved those words in this old brain. Time for them to find new life.”
The metal warmed in her hands. “Jimmy, ye canna mean it.”
“Take it, lass. ’Tis a brave thing you’re doing. Take these words, and that bottle they’re in, and let them give ye strength when ye most need it.”
“But—”
He placed a hand on her shoulder. “Ye ken what I have to say. There’s no tellin’ how far God’s Word will travel, no matter what vessel it’s in.” A tap on the bottle, a moment of silence as he looked upon it and recalled—what? The day he pulled the empty bottle from a crevice in a stone wall in Ireland as a young man? It had been encapsulated with care in the ruins of an old castle, doubtless the great treasure of an important family from another time. She’d heard the tale more than once.
“Time for these words to travel in new hands,” he said. “The bottle is a fine thing, but it was never my treasure. It was the words that mattered to me. That bottle’s just a messenger. And it does its job well.”
“Thank you, Jimmy.” She felt as if some great responsibility had just been entrusted to her—this bottle with a legacy far beyond her. But with it came a fluttering of hope, a settling of strength. For she carried the words that had survived the fires and waters of the past, landing in her own arms now to spur her on. Meg hugged it to her heart, protecting it from the rain as it fell harder. As if the bottle hadn’t weathered countless storms in its hundreds of years already.
And it looked as if it was about to weather another.
The sky, dark as it gave way to night, unleashed its torrents. The whitecaps of the sea snapped like hungry fangs. Shouts arose around them on deck, Jimmy pulling her close to a mast. Strong footsteps pounded from behind, and Duncan appeared.
His dark hair hung wet about his handsome face, a smoldering wildness behind his eyes. “We’ve a problem,” he said.
“The storm,” Meg began. “What can I do?”
“Nae. I wish that was the problem.” He pointed behind them, and Meg could barely make out the form of a silhouette. A smaller ship, headed their way. The schooner.
“Angus,” he said, and then he quickly gave Jimmy the details of the man’s relation to Ian Campbell. “If he knew of Meg…with his loyalty to Ian Campbell, the reward money…” He left the rest unsaid.
Meg drew her arms tighter about herself.
“He did see me,” she said. “‘Twas my own fault. I took my hood down too soon.”
“Nothing about this is your fault, Meg. You did not ask for this.” Duncan’s words eased the knot in her stomach a little. “All the same, I do not believe it is safe for you here.”
She shook her head, looking around. Sea in every direction. Dark night and a storm tossing them about. “When we get to land tomorrow, we could take cover,” she suggested.
Duncan shook his head, droplets of water on his dark eyelashes gathering, coursing down his rugged face. “That boat will overtake this one before then. It shouldn’t even be out here, for it sails close to the coastline
.”
Meg looked about, fear tumbling into her, desperate for some other explanation. “Perhaps they’re in distress. Coming for help in the storm. Lost their way.”
“The sailors aboard are as able and knowing as ours. We must take action,” Duncan said. He locked eyes with her. “They’re coming for you, Meg.”
Chapter Eight
We must divert.”
Meg burned with protest at Duncan’s words. But without warning, he turned, making straight for the front of the ship.
“Duncan!” Meg shouted, flinching against the bucketing rain. He could not—or would not—hear her.
A mighty wave slammed the ship. She scrambled for something to hold. Her back collided with a mast. Pain splintered through her. She steadied herself, clutching the rough surface of a rope wrapped up the mast, and strained to see through the frigid sea spray.
At the helm stood the captain and Duncan. A few clipped words exchanged, a handshake, and Duncan bounded back across the slick deck.
“We’ll take a currach,” he said, motioning toward one of the smaller boats tied to the side of the ship. Two of the sailors rushed to prepare it. “The wind has blown us close to the Irish coast. We’ll camp there for the night.”
Meg shook her head, desperation creeping into her very bones. “No,” she said.
“Pray God they do not see us,” he said, casting a glance back at the schooner. “The lanterns from this ship should lead them on, and we’ll slip away.”
“Slip away.” Meg drew herself up. “In a wee currach—in this storm. Are ye mad? And we’ve no time to spare if we’re to be to Gretna Green in time for the coach to London.”
“D’ye not remember your wedding day, Meg?” Kate’s voice interjected. Meg clamped her mouth shut. They’d witnessed it, each one here—Duncan, Jimmy, Kate. “What d’ye think they’ll do if they find you?”
Meg dropped her gaze. “If they keep me from Graeme—if it is too late by the time we get to London…” Her voice was raw. She could not finish the sentence.
Duncan turned her gently toward him. “They saw us in Campbelton. They know ’tis you. Diverting is our only chance, Meg.”
Meg fought to breathe. “We cannot.”
“We must.”
“But Graeme—”
Duncan brought his hands up, gentle but sure, until they cradled her face. “Please,” he said. “Do not let him lose you again, before he’s found you.” His thumbs moved to brush the storm’s wetness from her cheeks, and at last she met his eyes.
She could feel it tangibly—a rending within her. England just around the bend and a road unfolding to her brother. Ireland in the other direction, pulling her to a haven she could not see or be sure of. And a ship behind, gaining on them.
The storm within matched the storm without until she thought her heart would collapse. She surveyed every hopeless direction. Lord, help me see what to do. Make a way, please….
“I’ll not leave ye, Meg,” Duncan said.
“Nor I,” Jimmy’s rough voice piped up above the torrents.
“You won’t be rid of me, either,” Kate said.
Jimmy spoke again. “We’ll away to Ireland. Cross the sea in the morning if we can. The schooner will have passed by. And we’ll meet up with the others of our group again at Gretna Green.”
It all sounded so final. Yet in the midst of it, a whisper of faith stole through her, hushing the cries of protest. The sea did not part. The sun did not break through the night sky. But the strength that came in the sound of those three voices was enough to bolster her courage long enough to breathe deep…and speak the words that could either keep her from Graeme forever—or might just give them a fighting chance.
“To Ireland,” she said.
The moment the words were out, the deck erupted with movement, leaving nary a moment to consider the gravity of what this meant. She was passing ropes, gathering oars, heeding directions to board the currach. A quick embrace from Mrs. MacGregor and the others, and at last they were being lowered over the side of the ship. The bottom of their small vessel hit the ocean with a slap and a splash. The ropes retracted, slithering up and over the top of the ship.
Within minutes, the ship was sailing away toward England, storm beginning to wane at last.
The foursome sat in the small currach on the glittering waves of black waters, the night swallowing them into solitude. Meg clutched the handle of an oar across her lap, fingers wrapped so tight they ached.
The waters were choppy, but the storm left an eerie quiet in its wake. The only sound a single oar dipping into the water. Duncan, taking them on toward Ireland.
Meg breathed deep, lifted her own oar, and leaned in to row.
Chapter Nine
A great wall of black, jagged silhouettes rose against the navy sky in the distance. “Ballyfír Monastery,” Thistle Jimmy said. His voice was solemn. “What’s left of it, anyway. Ashore, then, and we’ll shelter there.”
“Shelter is a generous word.” Kate’s attempt at a joke floundered in the solemnity of the moment as they drew nearer the ruins. “Oh, come now,” she said, voice rising with a forced buoyancy. “Not a soul will find us here.”
“Indeed,” Meg said. “Not a soul would dare.”
True to her misgivings, navigating their way to shore was no easy task. It took all of them paddling and leaning and praying and counteracting the crash of the waves against the sabre-like rocks. The boards groaned with cracking sounds that twisted fear into Meg.
“Hold fast, lassies!” Jimmy shouted just as the boat was hit by a wave from the left, then another from the right. Another came at them from a pillar rock, away from the shore as if to warn them away.
But at last, the scrape of gravel beneath them slowed their boat, and Duncan leaped out and pushed them onto shore. Jimmy jumped to the rocky beach. Kate clambered over the side, following Jimmy to scout out the land. Just Meg and Duncan remained at the shoreline, an entire ocean welling up behind them. Waves lifted the tail end of the boat, propelling Meg toward him. But the lingering argument from the ship stood as a wall between them.
He offered a hand to her but looked as though he’d enjoy a doctor’s leeching more. And just for that, she thrust her hand straight through the invisible wall between them and took hold. She hopped down, and as soon as her feet touched the ground, she withdrew her hand. She knew she should thank him. ’Twas the proper thing to do, regardless of how she felt.
“Thank you,” she said. He gave a solitary nod of acknowledgment.
She caught a glimpse of Jimmy and Kate closer to the mass of land. Cliffs rose before them like legs of giants. Meg shivered at an image that suddenly came to mind—then laughed promptly at herself.
“All that cold water getting to you at last,” Duncan said dryly as he wound the rope of the boat around hand and elbow in a quick, adept motion.
“No.” To which he only raised skeptical brows. “Well, perhaps,” she said. “I was just thinking. Graeme used to tell me a story of an Irish giant who so reviled a certain Scottish giant that he built a stone path across the sea to confront his enemy.” She eyed the cliff top where a single, circular tower perched. From the corner of her eye she saw Duncan follow suit, looking up.
“And you think this is where he lives, then?” Duncan’s voice was lined with a feigned gravity. He tugged the boat higher on the rocky beach. Meg moved behind to help push.
“Aye.” She matched his tone, shoving the boat with Duncan’s next pull. They paused. “That tower there.” She pointed. “‘Tis no tower at all.” She rested her hands on her hips, catching her breath. “‘Tis his boot. Ready to come down upon Scottish foes”—this last word punctuated by the angry scrape of gravel beneath their next push—“who do not know when to listen to a lass aboard a ship in the middle of a storm.”
“Ah,” Duncan said. “So he’s a merciful giant, then. One who’ll put a man out of his misery.” He gave a final heave, pulling the boat away from Meg and tying it off
to a boulder. His words sailed through the air like a victory banner. Meg didn’t know whether to laugh or retort and had just decided not to dignify his quip with a reply when he cast a quick glance over his shoulder, letting his eyes rest on her. A flicker of depth warmed her in his gaze, but just as fast, he gave a wink—and the spell was broken. She fought a smile until he looked away. The scoundrel.
With his back to her as he tromped ahead toward the cliff, she did not need to hide the smile that climbed its way from the past and onto her face. It was nearly like old times. And it was welcome relief from what had transpired today.
She ran to catch up, despite the weight of her soggy skirts. The climb up the angled path along the cliff side would take every ounce of concentration, for it was mangled with overgrowth, slick with rain, and dark but for the cloud-filtered light of the moon. Duncan motioned her to go ahead, and while the gesture was kind, it made the climb all the more nerve wracking. That he could see her every misstep. That when the ground came to life in a slick hiss beneath her feet and she slipped toward the edge of the path with nerves firing panic, his footsteps behind her battled the same ground to steady her. A hand upon her arm, nothing more. Ever so brief, but she knew without it, she may well have tumbled straight down into the waves.
At the top, they joined Jimmy and Kate, who stared in hushed awe at the stark silhouettes of the ruins. While not a shadow stirred from the fallen rocks and remnant walls, Meg’s skin pricked with the richness surrounding this place. She knew life in seaside monasteries had been filled with peril for monks. Especially along this coast, where Vikings had raided the strongholds. Yet such strength remained in these stones. Each one seemed to proclaim the courage of those who came before—and even more, the strength of the One they followed. The whole place was cloaked in a sense of resolute hope.
The ruined structure and its nameless stories drew her. She could not help breaking from the line formation that she and the others stood in, and taking a step toward it. And another, and another, and—
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