Tempest in the Highlands (The Scottish Relic Trilogy)

by May McGoldrick

  It occurred to her that she could turn it around and ask him about his first, or about how many women he’d bedded in his life. But she didn’t really want to know. In truth, she realized, she knew nothing of him. She hazarded a glance at him. The amused look on his face wouldn’t wash away.

  A horrifying thought struck her. Perhaps he was married. Perhaps he had a loving wife and a dozen children waiting in England for his return.

  “When a man talks like that and then has a sudden lapse of memory,” Hawk continued knowingly, “it means he’s hiding something.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m not hiding anything.”

  The look he sent her said he didn’t believe her. “I’m speaking from firsthand experience.”

  “You’re still wrong,” she insisted.

  He waved a hand, dismissing her denials. “I’d say that you’re hiding one of two things. Either you’ve never bedded a woman or you’re still sweet on her. So which is it, lad?”

  She cast about desperately, unable to decide which was easier. Should she weave together all kinds of sordid stories about dozens of wenches or wax lyrical about a romance with a single woman? She was afraid he’d see through either choice.

  “Damn me, but you’re blushing red as a ripe apple,” he said.

  She knew she was. Her face was burning. She contemplated rubbing another fistful of dirt on it, but he was watching her too closely.

  “How old were you when you had your first? You can at least remember that.”

  By the Virgin, why did she start this conversation? He seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. “Sixteen.”

  “So late?”

  That was late? Miranda stole a glance at him. “Aye, but I hear lechers start very young. You must have been scarcely weaned when you bedded your first lass.”

  He laughed so hard that his eyes watered. “So you’ve been hearing the songs they sing about me.”

  “Truly now,” she pressed. “How old were you?”

  “We’re talking about you, lad.”

  “But your life has been far more exciting than mine.” She knew from experience that people loved to talk about themselves. Perhaps she could steer him away from this. “Sailing the seas. Fighting the Spaniards for their gold. Drinking and swiving bonny wenches in exotic ports. You must have hundreds of stories to tell.”

  Damnation, why did she mention swiving?

  “Don’t try to distract me.” He wasn’t falling for it. “So who was she?”

  “What point is there in naming the wench? You wouldn’t know her.”

  “I’ve got it.” Hawk grabbed her by the arm, stopping her and spinning her to face him.

  Miranda stopped breathing. The touch of his fingers spread through her shirt and warmed her skin. His hazel eyes danced with mischief as they studied every muscle in her dirty face. The butterflies dancing in her belly fought to break free.

  “I’ll be damned,” Hawk said. “It all makes sense now.”

  “What does?”

  “You and Miranda,” he said. “You’re the same age. You grew up together. Your place at the castle would only make you want her more. I can see it now . . . you serving food to her, looking at her longingly from afar, doing all you can to attract the lass’s attention.”

  “Hawk, I think you swallowed too much seawater. Maybe you banged your head going overboard.”

  “Try to laugh it off, lad,” he challenged. “This explains you disparaging her, telling me she’s ugly as a mangy cur.”

  Miranda snorted. “All right, if you must know. It was Sadie, a slut of a lass from the village. Every lad from Tarbert to Kildonan has had her. Why, she’s famous for her—”

  “Nay, it wasn’t any Sadie. Your face says it all.”

  “Think what you will,” she insisted. “It wasn’t the laird’s daughter. The MacDonnell would have skinned me alive with a dull knife and hung my carcass from the tower.”

  Hawk looked skeptical, but Miranda began walking again. He stayed with her. And though she risked extending his interrogation, she wanted to know about him.

  “Are you married, Hawk?”

  “I’m not.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated, looking off into the distance.

  “Don’t feel you need to answer, of course,” she said. “I’m just a member of your crew. But you have a good name. You have wealth. You’re surely of a suitable age for marrying. Why haven’t you?”

  His silence made Miranda study him as they walked. The laughter in his face was gone. He was deep in thought.

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance,” she pressed. “I look up to you. Respect you. And since you brought up this topic of women, I’m curious why you haven’t yet taken a wife.”

  They were now entering a meadow dotted with outcroppings of rock and groves of trees. The hills that bordered the valley were beginning to cast shadows. They continued on for a while before he broke the silence.

  “The idea of family is difficult when a man is divided between two lands,” said Hawk.

  “You mean, being half Scot and half English?”

  He nodded.

  “Why must that stop you?” she asked. “Good King Jamie, may he rest in peace, had an English mother. Right now, they say the Tudor king wants our wee Queen Mary for his son.”

  The look he sent her made Miranda realize that she might have said too much. What would a kitchen lad know of such things?

  She was relieved when Hawk’s gaze turned to a field ahead of them. It sloped gradually down to a wooded glen and a meandering stream. Hundreds, if not thousands, of geese were gathered there.

  He looked at her. “Now comes the true test of your worth, lad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If one of those birds is not our supper, I’m going to roast you over a fire.”

  Chapter 9

  Rob tossed the wing bone of the goose into the fire and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Across from him, Miranda was sound asleep.

  This was one of the most entertaining days he could recall in a very long time. Perhaps ever. Teasing her, arguing with her, having her formulate lies and try to not trip over them while he challenged her stories was impressive. She was smart, funny, beautiful, and completely at ease with him, pretending to be someone else.

  Preparing the goose had put a perfect end to their day. She’d been useless in preparing dinner, though she’d done a fine job helping to eat it.

  Rob looked at the carcass of the bird that he himself had killed and cleaned and roasted. To be fair, Miranda had gathered a few sticks for the fire and grudgingly helped pluck the feathers . . . for a while. But she’d been so slow, complaining the entire time, that Rob had finally taken over and finished the job himself. Of course, he’d given her an obligatory lecture.

  Rob couldn’t help but smile as he watched the sleeping young woman, curled up against the tall rock protruding from the ground. Their talk about sex and whom she had bedded brought out the devil in him. He reasoned that she’d started it. But he still chuckled, remembering her reaction when he’d suggested she’d had a dalliance with Miranda.

  His gaze was drawn to her beautiful sleeping face again and he recognized the danger of the game he’d set to play. He’d already lost control of reason. His attraction to her was growing too fast.

  Rob looked at the black hills to the south and back at the higher ridge they’d traversed today. He needed to create some distance, bring back sense, stop himself from being consumed by Miranda’s charm, both awake and asleep.

  Beyond their banter, it had been a long and trying day for both of them. They’d walked and climbed a good distance, though it seemed they still had far to go. This was a strange place, this Isle of the Dead. The stubborn fog beyond the cliffs never lifted, but here, just inland, the weather stayed good. He looked up at the sparks rising into the starry, black velvet sky and listened to the burbling sound of the stream.

  They hadn’t found any of the Peregrine’s crew—no one wand
ering about, no smoke from any other fires—and that bothered him deeply. He would have preferred to be down close to the water, following the shoreline, but that was impossible. What beaches they had seen appeared to be narrow ribbons of rock and sand covered by every rising tide. Perhaps tomorrow would bring some wind that would disperse the fog.

  He had no doubt regarding Miranda’s claim that he’d seen a man. Whoever this stranger was, it was possible that he would make another visit while the two were most vulnerable. Rob had decided they would take turns sleeping tonight.

  In his chosen profession, Rob was accustomed to danger. This wasn’t the first time he’d been separated from his crew. He’d find them, if they were alive. And if those poor souls lay at the bottom of the sea, he’d find some way off this island. Perhaps they’d find a boat in their search.

  He wondered now how large the island was and how long it would take to reach the southern end of it.

  Rob’s gaze was drawn to Miranda. She was making strange noises in her sleep. Her hands and feet jerked. She stiffened and rolled, turning her back to him.

  The firelight showed fresh blood on the back of her tunic. She was bleeding, not nearly as badly as before, but it was still there. He wanted to see to it, dress it for her. But he already knew she wouldn’t allow it. Because she was a woman who didn’t wish to get discovered, and also a stubborn Scot.

  Rob had a fondness for Scots, for their toughness and their wit. That was why he had so many of them on his crew.

  Rob’s mind returned to Miranda’s question about marriage. He’d answered truthfully, for the most part. Since childhood, he’d never really belonged. Though he grew up in England, it was never home. And then, of course, he had yet to meet the woman who could entice him to marry and settle down.

  His mother was a Scot, but she died when Rob was still very young. His memories of her were scattered and vague. The stepmother who replaced her, however, embodied everything that he disliked in a woman. Polite on the surface, but intolerant underneath. Beautiful, but ice cold. Rich, but tightfisted to the needy. She was far too proud of her aristocratic English blood, and disdainful of any that she saw as beneath her. Naturally, that included anyone with Scots blood.

  He’d had no difficulty rejecting out of hand the marriage prospects suggested by his stepmother. They were all women of her ilk.

  Sitting tonight beneath the clear northern sky, it occurred to him that perhaps the answer was to find a woman from here.

  What Scottish woman in her right mind would be willing to join him in such a fate? He spent more time at sea than on land. He would be an absent husband, so much like his father.

  Miranda suddenly sat bolt upright.

  “Let him in,” she ordered in a thick voice. Her legs twitched, her arms cutting the night air. Her eyes were open, but she appeared to be in the midst of a nightmare.

  “He’s with me,” she shouted.

  Rob waited, hoping she would wake herself up from whatever terrifying vision she was experiencing. But there seemed to be no end to it. She shook. Her arms struck the stone behind her. Sounds resembling cries escaped her lips.

  “Gavin,” Rob called to her and got to his feet.

  She didn’t awaken. Her arms and legs continued to shake. Her head thrashed from side to side.

  Rob crossed to her side, leaning over her. “Wake up.”

  He crouched beside Miranda, intending to shake her awake. She grabbed his hand, pressing it against her chest, her breast. Keeping it there.

  Rob already knew of the layers of cloth she wrapped around her chest. Still, his loins tightened.

  He took a deep breath. “Lord help me.”

  Standing with her husband Alexander Macpherson on the aft deck of his ship, Kenna looked back at the iron-colored sea. The water was only slightly darker than the sky above it, and they seemed to blend into one at the horizon.

  At least the storm had blown itself out, she thought. The ocean was calmer now, with a steady breeze behind them.

  Alexander’s arm slipped around her, and Kenna thought of how fortunate they’d been to this point. Since leaving Girnigoe Castle in the company of Innes Munro and her husband Conall Sinclair, she’d not needed to use her gift of healing until they reached Tarbert Castle.

  Along with their escort of warriors, the four had traveled overland though the Highlands from Caithness, far to the north, to Benmore Castle, Alexander’s ancestral home. Then, in search of Muirne MacDonnell, they’d ridden west and boarded the Macphersons’ ship.

  They found Tarbert Castle in ruins when they arrived, the work of Sir Ralph Evers. Learning that Muirne had died before Evers’s arrival, Kenna and Innes were sure that her daughter Miranda must have been entrusted with the stone. Thankfully, she’d gone missing days before the attack.

  After telling them about it, the village priest also told them about the arrival of the English privateer Rob Hawkins, known to all as the notorious Black Hawk.

  They’d spent a day at Tarbert, their men helping where they could while Kenna saw to the wounded. Innes, with her gift of reading the past, had learned what she could. It appeared that Evers was on the trail of Miranda toward Duart Castle, and Black Hawk was in pursuit of Evers.

  “A ship, m’lord,” came the shout from high in the rigging. The sailor was pointing into the distance.

  Kenna followed her husband to the bow as the crew sprang into action and the Macpherson ship adjusted its course toward the vessel.

  “She’s dead in the water,” Alexander said when they were still quite a distance away.

  Kenna looked toward the disabled ship languishing in the sea. She could just make out the jumble of broken masts and tangled rigging.

  “Could it be Evers?” she asked. She thought of the damage wrought by the English commander all across Scotland. He’d cut a swath of destruction, and he killed without mercy.

  They’d come west looking for the last of the four stones that comprised the Wheel of Lugh, but if Kenna had a chance, she’d readily plant a dagger in Evers’s heart.

  The Highlander stared for a while longer, his dark blond mane lifting in the breeze. “Nay, that would be far too lucky. That’s the Peregrine. Black Hawk’s ship.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The figurehead. The black bird with its wings spread wide. It’s the Peregrine, all right. And it looks like they ran into the same storm that carried us so far to the northwest.”

  “Could they have been attacked by Evers?”

  He shook his head and turned his blue eyes on her. “There’s no sign of cannon blasts or fire. But it’s clear Black Hawk’s ship took a worse beating from the gale than we did.”

  The storm had certainly been a rough one, but they’d come through with no damage. “What do you know about this Black Hawk?”

  “There’s no better sailor plying his trade on the English coast than him,” Alexander continued, admiration evident in his tone. “Comes from a sailing family. His father is William Hawkins, the man who commands Henry Tudor’s ships. Word is, Black Hawk has taken so many Spanish treasure ships that he’s doubled the size of his father’s fleet and stocked King Henry’s war chest with enough gold to fight France and Scotland at the same time.”

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “Not yet. He works the seas to the south. They say his mother was a Kennedy of Moray, and that’s why he’s never raided the Scots.” Alexander stared across the water. “I think the enticement of Spanish gold has kept him busy enough.”

  On board the damaged vessel, sailors cutting away tangled and broken sections of rigging stopped to watch the approaching Scottish ship.

  “Black Hawk must have lost more than a few men,” Alexander mused. “He’s got twelve good guns aboard Peregrine, but he’s making no move to defend her. He doesn’t want to fight.”

  “I thought that pirate was always ready to fight,” a deep voice said behind them. “He has a reputation for cleverness. Is he trying to lure us in?”
r />   Kenna and Alexander turned as Conall Sinclair and Innes Munro joined them at the railing.

  Innes took Kenna’s arm. The turbulent seas brought on by the storm had been difficult for her, but she looked better today. Innes’s black hair was braided, as usual, and a few wisps of that interesting patch of white had come free, trailing down the side of her face.

  “I don’t think he’s being clever,” Alexander replied. “His damage is too extensive. We could sink him where he sits.”

  Conall Sinclair, the Earl of Caithness, was one of the most famous men in Scotland. The black-haired giant was a fierce warrior and had been a close confidante of the late king, but he’d lost one hand at the Battle of Solway Moss and spent a year of torment in an English dungeon. It had been a difficult return for Conall, but Kenna could tell that his life was well on the way to mending now that he had found and married Innes Munro.

  Kenna had thought so many times of late how good it felt to have a new friend like her. She’d learned from Innes the history of the stone tablet that had been passed on to her when her mother died. Kenna had lost the stone to the Englishman, Evers, but she still possessed its gift. Only in death did the power transfer to the new keeper of the relic.

  Innes, too, had lost her portion of the Wheel to Evers, but she retained the ability to read a person’s past. If they were correct, Miranda MacDonnell—wherever she was—still had the stone that allowed her to see the future. They had to find her before Evers did, for she might not know the danger she was in.

  “What will you do?” Conall asked. “Board the vessel?”

  “Offer help. I have no intention of getting into a clash,” Alexander answered. “It appears that we are both chasing after Evers.”

  “I wonder if he knows about the stone tablets,” Kenna asked.

  “When we talk to him,” Innes offered. “I can try to find out what he knows.”

  The Macpherson commander’s attention was no longer focused on Black Hawk’s ship. It was as if a wizard had waved his wand and ordered nature to be still.

  “What happened to the wind?” Conall asked, following the other man’s gaze.