The steersman had sobered up by now, and both he and the Captain stood by the wheel. Captain Hoseason’s face was grave but steady as steel, and I could not but admire him for his courage when facing death and ruin. For myself, I was terrified, but did not want to show it. For Neil was as cool and composed as I would have expected him to be in such a situation, and I was not going to show my fear by running screaming for my cabin.
We passed the little island of Vatersay. The light was fading now, but the rising moon illuminated everything as clear as day. The tide around the islands was strong, and tossed the brig about like a cork. The captain put his hands to the wheel alongside the steersman as we sheered to one side and then the other to avoid the rocks. Even Neil set his weight with theirs against the tiller as it struggled like a living thing, and the wind and waters drove us inexorably towards the rocks. My fingers were white and tight on the ship’s rail.
‘Reef to windward!’ the man in the rigging called out, and at the same moment the tide caught the brig and turned her about. She spun into the wind like a top. The sails filled and she hit the rocks with such a blow that it threw me flat on the deck.
Neil grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. ‘To the longboat!’ he shouted, above the sound of the hissing spray.
The brig shifted on the rocks with a terrible groan of timbers, and Neil half dragged, half carried me across to where Mr Riach and a couple of men were busy throwing various bits of equipment out of the longboat and attempting to pull it across the side ready to launch. This was no easy task, because the waves were breaking over the brig now, and every few moments we were forced to stop and hold on for dear life as water raced across the deck. I worked with the others, and beside me Neil worked too, his expression dark and set, his hands touching mine, desperation in both our hearts.
‘Hold on!’
The shout came from the man on watch and we braced ourselves, but then a wave so huge lifted the brig clean off the rocks and smashed it down again on its side. Whether my hands were too numb to grip by now, or whether I reacted a second too late I am not sure, but the water caught me and swept my wet skirts about my knees, knocking me down. The sea carried me away as though I weighed nothing, and I was cast over the side into a choking, whirling pit.
I went under, blinded, terrified, my lungs bursting, and gulped a mouthful of salty water. I came up and heard a shout, saw for a moment Neil’s face and his outstretched hand so close to me, but even as I reached for him I sank again, and the water closed over my head. After that I was so battered and beaten by the movement of the sea that I was only half-conscious. I had learned to swim as a child, but it was no use to me now in that pounding maelstrom, and after a few half-hearted splashes I gave up and went with the tide. I knew I was going to die, but somehow the thought no longer troubled me.
Eventually I started to dream. I dreamed that someone was holding me and guiding me into calmer waters. When I struggled a little he murmured soothing words in my ear and I felt peaceful even though I was so cold and so tired and could not stay awake. I let my mind float free of the storm and thought of my childhood at Applecross, with the sun sparkling on the sea and the warmth of it beating down on my head, my father calling me in from the garden and my mother wrapping me in her scented embrace…They were here now, lifting me, holding me, and I felt so safe and knew I need worry no more.
And then someone slapped me hard on the back, and all the water left my body in a choking rush. I was lying on a sandy beach, staring at the stars, and little waves were still breaking over me. I had no strength and felt sick, and wanted to lie there and die. But Neil was not going to let me. He grabbed me and dragged me upright, shaking me so hard I thought my neck would break. His eyes were burning with a fierce dark light and he looked angrier than I had ever seen him; angrier than I had even imagined he could look.
‘You are not going to leave me now, Catriona!’
I wanted to respond but my eyes were closing. It was too much effort.
‘Open your eyes!’ He jerked my chin up, his fingers hard against my cheek.
My eyes snapped open. ‘How dare you—?’ My words came out in an infuriated croak.
‘That’s better.’ He looked grimly amused. ‘Don’t you dare go to sleep now or you will die. Do you hear me?’
He picked me up as though I weighed less than a feather and strode up the beach. I bit my lip to prevent myself from groaning. I did not want to show any further weakness, and given the way that Neil had treated me up until now I suspected that he would have very little sympathy for me anyway. My sore cheek chafed against the soaking collar of his coat. All of my body ached with a pain that was deep, deep in my bones. Every inch of my skin felt bruised and torn. I felt cold and racked with shivers, but hot and feverish at the same time, as though I wanted to rip off my soaking clothes because they were too warm for me.
I lay still. I remembered now the moment that someone had caught me and held me, pulling me away from the murderous reef and into the calmer waters of this little bay. Neil must have jumped into the water to rescue me. He had put his own life in danger to save mine. My mind struggled with the enormity of it. The love I had had for him before was as nothing to what I felt now—now that he had risked everything to save me.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered. My lips felt cracked and salty, and my throat was so sore, but I knew I had to make him understand that I realised what he had done.
He paused in his step for a moment and looked down at me. ‘I’d like to say it was a pleasure,’ he said, and I could hear the wry humour in his voice, ‘but that hardly covers the situation.’
I turned my head slightly to see if the Cormorant was still visible. I could just see her in the distance, black and white in the moonlight, lying low on the rocks now. There was a wide tract of calm water between our cove and the reef, but nothing moved on it. I wondered if they had managed to launch the longboat.
My head bumped against Neil’s shoulder as he strode up the shingle. I could see heather and machair and white sand. Little white stars of mica sparkled in the rocks. It looked extremely pretty—except that it all seemed to be fading from before my eyes.
I had begun to shiver in spasm after spasm that I could not control. My head felt so heavy I could not hold it up. My eyelids were weighted with lead.
‘Hold on, Catriona,’ I heard Neil say. ‘We are almost at shelter.’
He did not sound angry with me any more, but he did sound worried. I tried so hard to hold on. I wanted to please him, and to banish that anxiety from his voice, but I could not stay awake. My strength was exhausted. I gave in to the darkness and it rushed in to claim me. I felt nothing but the most enormous relief.
Chapter Twelve
In which my heart is broken.
The first sensation that I recognised was warmth. I was warm and I was dry and it felt wonderful. I lay for several seconds simply savouring the feeling. Then I opened my eyes and tried to move. This was a mistake. Immediately every last inch of my body screamed with pain. My skin felt scoured by rock and sand, and my bones ached and groaned like those of an old woman. I gave a gasp.
Someone moved beside my bed. It was Neil. He had been sitting close by and now he turned towards me. The firelight was behind him, and there seemed no other light in the room, so I could not see him properly other than to realise with a tremendous shock that he looked as tired and worn and old as I felt. His eyes were sunk deep and his face was lined and grey. In that moment I realised he must have been sitting beside me from the time he had first brought me here, and I had no notion of how long that was.
‘How are you feeling?’ His voice was brisk, but for a moment I thought I had seen the shadow of quite a different emotion in his eyes.
‘Beastly,’ I said, and he smiled at me, and the tiredness lifted from his face for a second.
‘But I am glad to be alive,’ I added, ‘and I think I have you to thank for that.’
‘You have already thanked me.’
He had turned away. His voice was gruff. ‘Would you like some water?’
‘Please.’ My throat was parched and sore from gulping down so much salt water. I moved a little, recognising now that my body hurt from being pummelled and battered on the rocks, and thrown around in the current like a rag doll. I imagined I must be covered in bruises. Soon, I thought, when I felt strong enough to face the shock, I would look.
I moved slightly as Neil brought some water over to me in a dented tin beaker. The covers fell back—actually they looked like grain sacks, and felt as rough—and as the cold stung my bare arms I realised that I was naked. I made a grab for the nearest sack and saw Neil grin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He sounded both amused and rueful. ‘I had to do it. It was the only way to tell whether or not you were badly injured—and most of your clothes were ripped to shreds anyway.’
It said something about my feelings for Neil that even when I was in such extremes of discomfort the thought of him stripping me naked and examining my body made me feel hot all over, made my skin prickle with something very different from pain. It was fortunate that the room was so dark he could not see my blushes, or I would have been obliged to plead a fever to hide my reaction.
I took the cup gingerly, preserving my modesty with a carefully placed sack, and gulped down the water within. I could tell it was spring water, and it tasted delicious.
‘So I have no clothes?’ I asked, looking at him over the rim of the beaker. ‘What am I to do?’
Neil laughed. ‘Some of them are still wearable, and they will have dried out by now. And I am sure we can fashion you a skirt from one of these sacks.’
I rolled over in order to get a better look at our shelter. If there was sacking for blankets and sacking for clothes as well, I had guessed that this was not a very luxurious lodging. There was no light other than what the one window could provide, and at present it was closed and barred with a wooden shutter, so I assumed it was night. Neil had coaxed a fire in the grate, and by its light I could see we were in a rough, one-roomed croft that was presumably used as a fisherman’s shelter. The narrow cot I was lying on had heather for a mattress, which poked and prodded at me in a way my bruises disliked intensely. But beggars could not be choosers. At least we had a roof over our heads and one, moreover, that did not appear to leak.
‘How long have I been asleep?’ I asked.
‘Two days and two nights,’ Neil said. He had sat down again on the stool that was beside my cot. ‘I was afraid you had taken a fever the first night, but you shook it off. You must come from strong stock, Catriona Balfour.’ Our eyes met and held, and his were dark with emotion. ‘You were very brave,’ he added, ‘both in the shipwreck and before. I will never forget…’
His voice faded away, and for a long moment we looked at one another. The feelings seemed to tighten like a coil within me and tug at my heart until I felt breathless. Neither of us could break the moment.
The fire hissed as the dampness in the peat fought the flame, and Neil wrenched his gaze away from mine. I felt shaken, both by the force of my feelings and the expression I had seen in Neil’s eyes.
‘You do not look as though you have slept in all the time we have been here,’ I said, a little at random.
Neil shrugged, ill at ease. ‘I confess I did not fancy sleeping on this floor,’ he said. ‘I have been out once or twice to fetch water and take a look around.’
He did not say that he had not dared to leave me for fear I would relapse into the fever and never awaken, but I knew that was in his mind.
‘The brig!’ I said, suddenly remembering. ‘Is there any sign—?’ But I stopped as Neil shook his head.
‘I don’t know if they were able to lower the boat and paddle to safety,’ he said. ‘The ship has gone, and although there are plenty of goods washed up on the shore I have seen no one.’
I knew he meant that he had neither seen men alive nor dead bodies, and I did not know whether to be sad or thankful.
‘If they were able to escape to safety,’ I said slowly, ‘do you think that they would send anyone back to look for us?’
‘No,’ Neil said. ‘I do not.’ He looked at me, his face stern in the firelight. ‘Hoseason would face arrest and trial if the truth of his kidnapping attempt became known,’ he said. ‘He will not risk that to see if we are safe.’
I was silent. I knew he was probably right. Even if the crew had survived they would not wish to face difficult questions by admitting that we had been on board the brig. We were abandoned.
We sat quietly together for a while, on my part because I was exhausted simply from drinking a little water and asking questions, and on Neil’s because he was probably thinking over all the difficult things I had not yet had chance to consider, such as the fact that we were alone on the isle and had no food and nothing but spring water to drink, and that there was only a rough croft to shelter us and no means of escape.
Presently I told Neil I needed to get up and go outside, which was accomplished by my wrapping several sacks around myself and him tying them together with twine, since my fingers were too sore to do it. I did not much care what I looked like, and to Neil’s credit he managed not to laugh at the sight. He insisted on coming with me in case I fell down in a faint, and as I staggered back inside, clutching his arm for support, I reflected ruefully that I had no secrets from him now—and no doubt very little allure left either.
The little croft was cosy, though, for all its simplicity. Neil helped me back into the cot and banked the peat fire down, but when he made to take his seat on the stool again I put out a hand to stop him.
‘This is folly,’ I said. ‘There is plenty of space in this cot for two, if we lie like spoons, and if you do not rest soon I will be the one tending to you, for you look fit to fall down.’ I was nervous, and so my words got faster and faster as I spoke. I had never invited a man to my bed before.
He was silent for so long that I was sure he was about to refuse, but then he heaved a huge sigh.
‘I suppose…’
‘Good,’ I said, covering my embarrassment with briskness. ‘If I wear these sacks and you keep all your clothes on then we will be most respectable. Besides, I am too ill for this to be anything other than a practical arrangement.’
Neil glared at me. ‘Very well,’ he said fiercely. ‘But it is only until I can retrieve some of the driftwood from the beach tomorrow and make another bed.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
A part of me was shocked by his vehemence, and yet another part was not. Something had changed between us from the moment that I had helped him escape.
Yet, despite our best intentions, it felt scandalously unrespectable when Neil slid into the bed behind me and lay against my back. Though he tried to hold himself apart from me, and I held myself stiffly away from him too, I was shockingly aware of his proximity, and of the unfamiliar hard lines of a man’s body so close to my own. I could feel the movement of his chest as it brushed my back. His breath stirred my hair, raising goose pimples on my neck. I felt hot and disturbed. Evidently I was not as ill as I might have imagined.
After we had lain tensely that way for quite a long time, Neil gave a sigh and said, ‘Neither of us will get a wink of sleep like this.’
I wriggled a little with discomfort. ‘What do you suggest?’
He did not reply, but slid an arm about my waist and drew me very gently back into the curl of his body, so that my back was against his chest and his legs curved close against my buttocks and thighs. It felt warm, delightful—and utterly improper. For a moment I allowed myself to imagine what it might be like if there were not three sacks and Neil’s clothes separating our bodies—if we were both naked and were lying together this way—and I felt light-headed at the thought. Clearly I was no lady to be thinking such wanton thoughts, particularly when I was so sick.
‘I am afraid,’ Neil said in my ear, ‘that you are going to learn some things about men that will probably sh
ock you, Catriona. But I should reassure you that although my body might…um…desire you, I would never abuse your trust. I swear it.’
I was already shocked, but I was intrigued too. Lying there with the fire dying down and the sound of the sea on the distant shore, and Neil’s arm about my waist and his body against mine, I could imagine how easy, how utterly pleasurable and how completely natural it would feel to give myself to him. Then I thought of my aching, bruised and lacerated body, and of the impossibility that it could give either of us pleasure at this moment, and was almost tempted to laugh.
‘Thank you,’ I said meekly. ‘I knew you could not be as much of a rake as you claimed.’
Neil sighed sharply. ‘I am every bit as much of a rake as I claimed, Catriona, which is why you are in the gravest danger, with only my honour standing between you and ruin.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘if your honour lets you down pray have some concern for my poor, bruised body. I cannot believe that even the greatest rake in Scotland could find so pitifully injured a woman to be attractive.’
Neil laughed, and I felt him relax a little. ‘You have a point. I am not so depraved.’
I yawned. My body warmed and softened against his and I relaxed, too. I felt his lips brush my hair, but in a gesture of sweet affection rather than seduction. Then I fell asleep.
When I woke in the morning the croft was full of daylight and Neil had gone. I missed the warmth of his body next to mine. I had a vague memory of half waking in the night to find his arms about me, and one of his legs entangled with mine. I remembered that it had hurt to feel the weight of him on my aching bones and the friction of his skin on the soreness of mine, but in truth I had not minded very much. In fact I had wanted to be closer still. Neil could have seduced me without a word of protest from me.
Kidnapped: His Innocent Mistress Page 13
