by R. L. Syme
Cadha’s Rogue
Highland Renegades, Book 5
R.L. Syme
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~ Dedication ~
For my fans,
Who pestered me about what happened to Erlan so ardently that this story developed. Your affection for these families and their stories is heartwarming for the author who loves them, too.
Chapter One
September 1303 – Hoorn, Holland
She would see him soon.
Cadha de Witt spread her arms against the frigid air sailing in across the sea and imagined the wind carrying her sweetheart back to her. Papa’s letter announcing their return had arrived the previous week, and Cadha had been on the dock every day since, waiting for Maas.
After seeing him each evening for as long as she could remember, even a month’s absence hurt her heart. Cadha couldn’t bear to be parted from him for one more day.
He would come back to her.
The wind slid over her face, stinging her cheeks. She couldn’t wait much longer, and it was nearly dark. With one hand shielding her eyes from the sun, she surveyed the entire harbor and all the pockets beyond.
Still no Lion. Papa’s ship no longer displayed the golden sail since he began working as a privateer, but Cadha could still recognize the cut of the main whenever it entered the inlet.
“Cadha!” Mama’s voice cut through the cold air. “Get back to the house before all your limbs freeze off, or your father will hear about it.”
With a frustrated sigh, Cadha turned away from the water. Not even the promise of warmth could entice her to huddle under the low ceiling in their home.
She kicked the dust and glanced one last time at the harbor. Her heart soared. A ship! It slid past the last wharf and Cadha picked up her skirts. She ran down the dock until it joined a hillside.
The Sea Lion cut the water on the quick side. The pier was long and narrow, so the longboat seemed to be careening toward her even as it slowed.
Like a girl, with her hair down her back, Cadha raced along the edge of the water. When she reached the prow, she jumped to the deck from the higher ground. Papa’s bright, smiling face greeted her as he held out his arms.
Cadha leapt off the hill and tumbled over her father. They wrestled, pitching across the deck, until she landed atop him at last, raising her arms in victory and laughing.
He beamed up at her. “My little Cadha.”
“Not so little anymore, Papa. She’ll be nineteen in a month’s time.” Josephine de Witt piped up from behind them. “Look who’s on top now.”
With a shriek, Cadha vaulted into her sister’s arms. Pien winced.
“Be careful of your sister, my girl.” Papa’s hand on her back made her pull away. “She’s had a tribulation of late.”
“It’s nothing.” Pien waved her father off and walked to the edge of the deck, taking Cadha by the arm. “A trifle.”
The crew began shouting and Papa moved away to oversee guiding the ship into its berth. Cadha craned around Pien’s solid grip, looking for Maas. She couldn’t see her beloved, and at the helm, she found Kees Rademacher, her sister’s new husband and rescuer.
Pien stiffened, as though she anticipated a question. “Don’t stare, Cadha. It isn’t proper.”
A hard-scented man walked around them, throwing a rope over their heads and drafting them with a ripe noseful. Both girls coughed until he had passed.
Cadha pulled her sister closer. “Where is he?”
“Daughter.” Her father’s stern tone iced her persistence, but not her anger. “Wait until you are home.”
“Did something… is he injured?”
Pien put both hands on her sister’s shoulders and attempted to pull her off the deck. A queue of sailors formed behind them and when one man tried to go around, the great Lion himself stopped him with a look.
“I’m not leaving this deck until I have seen him.” Cadha crossed her arms, shaking her sister loose.
“Daughter of mine.” Papa’s voice was low, but his body encroached on her defiance. She tried to keep her lip from shaking, but this was his punishment tone. If she kept resisting, she knew what would happen. “I’m not going to ask you one more time,” he said. “At home.”
Cadha felt herself being swept off the ship by her father’s hands and her sister’s, but she kept looking behind her, trying to search out some clue as to what had happened to her Maas.
The crew was all above deck, and she couldn’t find his face among them. Had there been someone sick or injured, Papa would have brought him out before anyone would have been allowed to leave.
Where was he?
Once their feet landed on the dock, Pien took her by the hand and pulled her toward home, but every moment she walked away from the Sea Lion felt like an abandonment of her love for Maas.
“Please, Josephine. You know how I feel about him.”
The pained resignation on Pien’s face sent a lump of fear into Cadha’s throat that wouldn’t move, no matter how she breathed, swallowed, or concentrated. Waves lapped against the edge of the wharf, and she could still hear faint stamping noises from her father’s crew as they disembarked the ship.
“We will be home in mere minutes,” Pien said.
“Why? Why must we wait until home? Papa can’t hear us.”
“It will be best for you to have four walls around you. And I want to see Mother.”
Although Pien tried to put a lift in her voice at the end, Cadha wasn’t convinced. Something was very wrong. This all felt so familiar—the coddling, the pretending. It was the same routine her father had gone through when he and Mother sat Cadha at the kitchen table to explain that Josephine had been taken by some very bad men.
Was that what had happened to Maas? Had he been kidnapped? Or killed? The lump in her throat grew, stopped her breath. The sight of their front door made her hands seize on Pien’s arm.
She tried to speak, but she couldn’t form the words. Maas wasn’t coming home, and they wanted her away from the public eye when they told her so she wouldn’t make a scene.
Cadha swallowed and released a painful breath that brought the sting of tears to her eyes.
He wasn’t coming home.
They still thought she was a child, who would throw some giant tantrum if she found out the boy she loved wasn’t coming back to her. She blinked against the tears and glanced at the sky. Don’t cry, Cadha. Don’t cry.
They would expect her to act like a child, to scream and demand she get her way, but she wasn’t a child anymore.
Josephine released Cadha’s arm when they reached the door and she burst through it, calling out for Mother. The freedom to move gave Cadha the moment she needed to regain her composure.
She wiped at her eyes and repeated to herself, no tears, Cadha, no tears. Only a few minutes until she could run to Maas’s secret place. Then, she’d be able to cry and pound and destroy to her heart’s content. Just not now. She wasn’t some spoiled little rich girl who couldn’t control her tantrums, despite her parents’ worries. It had been years since she’d grown out of such childish behavior.
Pien’s features darkened from the happy reunion to wary foreboding the minute she turned away from Mother. She reached for Cadha’s hand and led her to the table.
All the sadne
ss and fear melted away, replaced by a deep fury. She wasn’t some silly child whose favorite toy had been lost at sea. She was a woman in love with a man who had not returned to her.
“I have bad news, Cadha, and it won’t be easy to hear, no matter what I say.” Pien squeezed her hand.
“Maas isn’t coming home.” A moment of pride flushed through Cadha’s body that she could say those words without collapsing into a puddle on the floor. But she said them.
Josephine exchanged a careful look with Mother. “No, he isn’t coming home.”
“Ever?”
“No.”
Mother jumped in, her voice carrying more shock than Cadha’s had. “But he was in training. Your father has invested so much in that boy.”
Man, Cadha thought. He is a man, and I love him. How she’d wanted to say that instead.
“When we were in Scotland, we discovered that Maas’s sister is still alive.” Pien took a deep breath. “He was so young when his cousin took him onto the Sea Lion, he barely remembered her. But the moment she saw him, she recognized him.”
“What will he do there?” Mother asked. “Does he have some way to make his living?”
“He didn’t say.”
“What did he say?” Cadha finally managed. “Did he send a letter?”
Josephine pressed her lips together and shook her head. “He was so overwhelmed by the news, he didn’t have time to put pen to paper before we had to leave Scotland.”
Cadha’s insides constricted. He hadn’t even written her a letter? Perhaps he would send one secretly in a few days. Surely, he’d been thinking about her.
“He was born and raised in Scotland, after all. His loyalty to Papa is deep, but you can’t fight the call of your homeland.”
His loyalty to Papa. The words echoed in Cadha’s head. Were they all really so blind? Hadn’t they seen how he loved her? Or how she loved him? Had they ignored the signs because they wanted her to make an advantageous marriage?
“Oh, my daughter.” Mother reached across the table and took Pien in her arms. “I’m so glad you are home. Your father was so worried. Let me find you something to eat, you look far too thin.”
And with that, all talk of Maas ceased. Mother and Josephine clattered around in the kitchen, talking of Josephine’s marriage and carefully avoiding all talk of her captivity, but their voices faded into a hum behind Cadha’s racing mind.
Maas is alive. In Scotland, but alive. He hasn’t abandoned me. Just stayed with his sister, as was his duty. He still loves me.
The door opened and her father filled it, his face drawn and tight. He searched out Josephine first. “Did you tell her?”
Pien nodded. “I’m sure she has more questions, but she seemed to take the news well enough.”
Cadha’s fingers balled into fists. “Will you stop talking about me like I’m not in the room?”
Papa strode to the table. “Now, cub, you know I’m not dismissing you. I was merely asking your sister…”
“I know what you were doing. I’m not a child.”
“Come here, my little cub.” Papa sat and pulled her into his lap. He stroked her hair as he had her whole life, but it felt more patronizing than loving.
“No one thinks you’re a child, Cadha.” Mother’s hand was on her shoulder before Papa could speak again. “We just know how much Maas had grown to be like your own brother. Your father is trying to protect you.”
Cadha stiffened. “I don’t need protecting.”
“Whether you need it or not, I am going to do it.” Papa held her arm. “Would you prefer the opposite? Would you rather I reveled in the pain I knew this would cause you? Enjoyed your suffering?”
She passed her tongue around her mouth, trying to hold back the words that wanted to spill out. Cadha shook her head.
“I know this is a difficult blow to your young life, Cadha. But Maas will always be part of this family, even though he will stay in Scotland and make his own family there.”
Every word was a new blow to Cadha’s heart. Not only did they fail to recognize Maas’s feelings for her, but they already had him married off to some imaginary Scottish woman who would bear his children.
No. She wouldn’t lose him to Scotland.
Cadha stood and forced a smile. “Yes, he will always be part of this family.” She backed toward the door. “I’m happy he found his sister.”
Pien’s eyes narrowed. “Cadha? Where are you going?”
“I left my drawing pencils on the dock. I should go retrieve them before someone finds them.”
“Go, and be quick about it.” Papa smacked his leg. “Now, wife. I’m starving for some food that hasn’t touched Jan’s hands, God bless him.”
Mother’s laugh billowed through the open door. “Oh, Brecht. One of these days you’ll get a real cook and then what will you say when you come home?”
“I’ll always prefer your cooking, love.”
Cadha left her family to discuss the crew and took a long, deep breath of the salt sea air that greeted her. Tears burned behind her eyes as she ran for the docks and the place she used to hide to trade flirtations with Maas.
Her brother indeed. If they only knew.
Chapter Two
Cadha climbed down under the wharf and the familiar smell of their cave settled her stomach. The tide was low, so only pools of water remained in the craggy bottom.
She and Maas had found this tiny, tight space one morning when he had accidentally pushed her into the water during a wrestling match. Each time they would climb down at low tide, they would make up a new story about why the cave existed.
Those stories numbered the stars.
The walls were narrow, and it was so well-hidden, it couldn’t be seen from any angle above. They had to climb down the hillside and around the rocky edge to find it. Just wide enough for two people, and just deep enough for them to sit in, it was only really usable at low tide. But even at high tide, the water only came halfway up the cave wall, so she and Maas had taken to storing things in the walls.
Cadha sat on the rock, her legs and backside wet. She felt up the walls to the ledges and pulled out three weathered purses. One contained personal effects, and the other two were full of money. Cadha always checked to ensure they hadn’t been swept away or stolen.
She hugged her legs into her chest and curled up against the wall. Maas was everywhere in this cave. Her memories of him here were so visceral, it was like having him back. The entire way here, she’d anticipated screaming and crying and pounding the walls in her anger. Now she was surrounded by Maas’s presence and his memory, and she felt comforted.
She placed the two heavier purses back in the wall and pushed them out of sight. The third she kept, turning it over in her hand, memory taking her by force.
Maas sat beside her, retrieved a pouch from his pocket, and placed it in her hands. His eyes locked onto hers and he passed it with such reverence, it might have been the body of Christ.
“What is it?” Cadha asked.
“Open it.” Maas smiled, his easy grin that made the whole world seem safe.
She pulled at the strings and three items fell into her hands. The first was a small flute, worn and light. Beneath it was a heavy ring with a crest etched into the top.
The third item was a folded piece of paper. She replaced the other two objects in the purse before unfolding the letter. The ink was thin and delicate, and the words were evenly spaced.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“That’s my promise to you.” He closed his hands around hers. “Your father is about to send me on my first ship and I wanted you always to have this.”
“What does it say?” She ran her fingers over the words.
He touched her nose and smiled. “It is a contract for my heart. I drew it up at school, and I wanted to sign it over to you.”
Maas placed one of her fingertips over the signature and seal at the bottom. “That, I made with my father’s ring. The only thing I
have of his.”
Cadha slipped her hand onto his cheek and rubbed at his ruddy complexion. “You never speak of your father.”
“It is painful.” His eyes went suddenly dark, and he cast his gaze down at the cave floor. It was so unlike Maas to be sulky, and it set her aback.
“Your sister?”
“She has been dead for years now, and my father and mother before her. And then James, my cousin. I have been without a family for so long, and I have lost everyone I have ever loved.”
“But you will always have me.” She let the letter fall into her lap and she threw her arms around him.
“I know this for certain, Cadha, even if your father will not let us marry, you will always have my heart.” The tremble in his words tore at her, and she held him tighter.
When they pulled apart, she felt a tiny thrill again, expecting him to kiss her, but he was ever the consummate gentleman. He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek. Her heart burned for more.
“I want you to keep this here.” He placed the letter in the bag and slipped it onto the highest ledge. “When I’m at sea, you can come and hold this, and know that no matter where we are, and no matter how far apart our travels take us, we will always be connected by our love, even across the farthest ocean.”
Cadha opened her eyes and opened the bag. It had been only a few months since he had first placed these things in her care. The flute had been taken on his first voyage, but the ring and the letter remained.
All she had to do was hold them, and she would feel his presence around her. The calm that settled into her chest gave her peace. She would see him again. He would return for her, or she would find him, and the world would be right again.
Cadha stayed in the cave until dark, holding the relics Maas had left her and humming to herself in the echo of the sea. From the cave mouth, she could see out into the bay, and even the busy port brought some measure of quiet to her anxious heart.
She had to pass her father’s ship in order to return home, and she waited until it was black night to do so. Two men remained on the deck of the Sea Lion, and Cadha slipped past them.
