When the Laird Returns

by Karen Ranney

  She was injured, a stranger, bound by his protection. But a certain part of his body recognized her only as female, warm and fragrant and essentially lovely.

  He should think of her as a troll, some sort of feminine monster with snakes in her hair. Not a woman with curving pink lips, a lulling voice, hair that was now snared in an ugly kerchief.

  Turning away, he faced the bow, lacing his arms through the ropes and determined to think of something other than Iseabal. Some men saw to their physical needs indiscriminately at every port, but Alisdair had never considered himself a slave of lust or a creature subject to the whims of desire. Until now. Why else would he stand on the rigging day after day in order to watch her?

  Alisdair had the odd and unwelcome thought that Drummond would be laughing himself silly if he knew.

  The place MacRae had chosen for her was secluded behind the captain’s cabin near the stern, and accessible only by a narrow walkway. Here, Iseabal was shielded from the sight of the sailors and their sometimes surprising behavior.

  Most of them had dispensed with their shirts, revealing brown, hairy chests. Even the MacRae was tanned, but she resolutely pushed him from her thoughts.

  The wind brushed playfully against her kertch, as if wishing to pull off her headdress and play among her hair. Irritated, Iseabal tightened the knot under her chin with an impatient jerk.

  Two stacked boxes served as her table. Another wooden crate was her chair. And in front of her was the slab of marble, stubbornly quiet. She couldn’t envision what it might be. A statue of a horse, perhaps. Or a replica of Fernleigh.

  She picked up her largest chisel, its metal surface the width of three of her fingers, and continued with her task of removing the corners. Any occupation was preferable at this moment. She wanted to forget her surroundings and, most important, her circumstances.

  This was the easiest work, yet the most treacherous. Too hard a strike in the wrong place and she could create a fissure in the stone. Or expose a cavity opening up where solid rock should be. But the ebony surface of the marble remained solid and intractable.

  “Would you like tea?” Rory asked, peering around the corner.

  Iseabal glanced over at him, shaking her head. Tea was evidently another custom borrowed from the Chinese, but unlike the men of the Fortitude, she did not enjoy it, finding it too bitter for her taste.

  “Are you sure?”

  Iseabal only smiled her denial. The cabin boy’s antipathy had eased during the past few days, and from time to time he even deigned to grant her a smile. She wondered if the MacRae had spoken to him, or did the fact that his captain had an annulment in mind soften the boy’s attitude?

  Rory had acted as intermediary between the two of them for the past three days, ferrying questions and answers back and forth. Was she feeling any pain? Did she need anything? Was she hungry now? Did she have any preferences for her meals?

  A surprise, that the Fortitude carried a cook on board, a man who reigned supreme, the power he wielded almost kinglike. His mop of red hair was his crown, while his scepter was the spoon he continuously waved in the air.

  Iseabal didn’t see the MacRae at mealtimes, choosing to eat alone in the cabin. She was more than satisfied with such an arrangement, thinking that the less she saw of her husband, the better.

  Those moments when he changed her wrapping had become increasingly difficult to bear. Her curiosity, coupled with a loneliness she’d never before felt, made her want to act in daring ways. Stroking her hand on his chest, placing her palm on his cheek, smoothing her fingers down his throat, were all gestures forbidden yet enticing. Neither spoke during those awkward occasions, and the only movements between them were those necessary as patient and physician.

  At night he would return to the cabin, make his berth on the floor, falling asleep without a word. And she, trapped in mute fascination, would lie there watching him in the darkness as if to learn about him while he slept.

  Last night, however, he’d done something different. He’d pulled out the table and a chair, setting them up quickly before going to one of the little doors in his chest. He retrieved a bundle of wood tied with a bit of string, and another object that looked like an oblong bowl.

  Without a word he placed the objects on the table, then opened another door, retrieving a set of tools not unlike her chisels, only smaller. Reaching into a compartment behind a sliding door, MacRae pulled out a small lantern and a glass vessel shaped like a teardrop, filled with a solid yellow mixture. Placing it on top of the lantern chimney, he lit the wick, then adjusted two vents.

  His hand hovered over the selection of tools, as if he were undecided about which one to use. Finally he selected one and, spreading the wood strips side by side on the table, began to trim the pieces.

  From her perch half concealed by the tartan curtain, Iseabal watched him, fascinated with his actions. He, in turn, was as silent as she, intent upon his task.

  When the yellow mixture was liquefied, he poured it drop by drop onto the ends of three of the shorter pieces of wood before affixing them to the oblong bowl. No, not a bowl, she realized as he added each piece separately. The wooden structure was beginning to look like the hull of the Fortitude, long and sleek, with an upturn on each end.

  His head was bent, his attention on his work. As if he had, Iseabal thought, forgotten her very presence. She felt the same when lost in her stone carving.

  In the faint light he looked larger somehow. Shadows fell over him, pooling around his shoulders and behind his head, dancing over his features.

  Finally she could stand the silence no longer, curiosity prompting her to speak. “Is it a ship?” she asked.

  He glanced up, turning his head slowly toward her. A lock of hair had fallen down over his forehead, as if pointing the way to his surprising blue eyes.

  “Yes,” he said. “I’m developing a new hull for a ship I’m designing.”

  “You build ships?”

  “I did,” he said, the words unspoken but lingering in the air between them. Before he had surrendered a fortune for Gilmuir and a wife he didn’t want.

  “You built the Fortitude,” she said, recognizing a similarity between the hull in his hand and the shape of the larger ship.

  He nodded. “I’ll build faster ones,” he said. “Ships like birds that fly over the water.”

  “Is that a form of glue, then?” she asked, pointing to the lantern.

  “A mixture of linseed oil, paraffin, and some other ingredients. It’s more the consistency of wax, holding the wood together, but pliable so that I can move a piece if I wish.”

  “In this is how you build a ship?” she asked curiously. “From a replica?”

  “This is how I do it,” he said. “Only after I’ve tested the design do I put it on paper. The actual workmanship begins from that plan.”

  Iseabal had a sudden image of him as a boy, flattened on his stomach beside a stream, floating leaves in the water and testing each one to see which was faster.

  The metal chisel ringing against inflexible stone was a familiar sound, one drawing her to her task and away from thoughts of the MacRae.

  Placing her tools on the impromptu table a few moments later, Iseabal flexed her stinging fingers, still feeling the vibration of the stone in her bones.

  This was a peaceful place to work, with the calm waves lit golden by the sun, and the sky a brilliant blue. She could feel the current, MacRae’s sea goddess, beneath the Fortitude as they sliced through the water. The wind filled the sails, speeding them toward England.

  A sound above made her tilt her head back, a hand shading her eyes. There on the rigging stood Rory, his bare feet resting on the ropes, his childish shoulders squared, his upper arms spindly in comparison to the MacRae’s. He stood nonchalantly beside the boy, high above the deck, his right hand pointing upward, his left easily resting against the mainmast. He didn’t seem aware of the danger, Iseabal thought, her heart beating furiously, both entranced and terrif
ied as she watched him.

  Again she was reminded of a warrior from earlier times. He looked as comfortable half naked as he did in his sartorial finery, and at ease with both the elements and danger itself.

  Sound carried easily, their conversation wafting down to the deck like a determined breeze. “Not until you’ve had more experience, Rory,” the MacRae said sternly, shaking his head in obvious denial.

  “I’ve been practicing, sir,” the boy replied, his gaze one of entreaty. “Were you not my age, sir, when you first climbed the rigging?”

  Alisdair studied the petitioner for several long moments. But the boy never looked away, only returned his gaze in equal measure. Finally the MacRae smiled, and with one gesture of his hand released the boy.

  “Mind your feet, Rory,” he said, staring after him. “And do not be in such a hurry that you don’t see obvious dangers.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rory said excitedly, bracing his feet on one of the iron bars embedded in the pitch-coated mast.

  Tilting his head back, he watched as Rory rose to the next spar. His smile had disappeared and in its place was a somber attentiveness.

  Iseabal turned away from the scene, from the sight of the MacRae, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. He was the MacRae, a man too large and strong to be denied, and her husband. Even if he did not wish it, he was forever bound to her. Perhaps one day, soon enough, he would declare himself released and sail back across the ocean, leaving her tied by tradition, ritual, custom, and ceremony to a man who did not want her.

  Her left hand gripped the chisel, her right the mallet. At the moment, they looked like strange appendages. But it was better to concentrate on her tools than on her husband and his intentions.

  Never a wife, always a bride.

  She closed her eyes, banishing that thought. And the sudden image of the freedom he wished for her. Instead, she craved the bondage he saw as matrimony, the feeling of belonging, the tandem of purpose.

  What would it be like to be married to such a man? Someone who was protective, caring, and loyal?

  He’d called her an artist. To most people, a piece of limestone was simply a rock, but to her, it held a magical promise. There could be an angel trapped in a bit of shale or the image of a face in marble. The first person who had understood how she felt about her work was also the man who wanted to rid himself of her.

  Tracing the chips in the marble with one finger, Iseabal recalled the moment of their first meeting. Even then he had fascinated her. Alarmed her, true, but incited her curiosity.

  Glancing up, she realized that Rory was climbing back down the iron rungs, more cautiously than he had ascended the mast. But the MacRae was no longer on the rigging.

  Instead, he was standing a few feet away. Her heart lurched and then calmed, and her breath seemed absurdly tight.

  “Why do you wear a scarf over your hair?” he asked in greeting.

  “All married women wear a kertch,” she answered, surprised. “It’s a sign of modesty and decent conduct.”

  He began to walk slowly toward her, the journey measured not in moments but in elongated heartbeats. His tanned chest was still bare, his shoulders naked, his stomach revealed as flat and rippling with muscle.

  Iseabal looked away rather than stare, thinking that she might still be a maiden, but she knew more of her husband than she had of any man.

  He reached out and touched the edge of her kertch where it met her cheek. Her skin tingled as his callused finger began a journey down her jaw and then up to her temple. Iseabal felt her cheeks warm even as a path of chills followed his finger.

  Only once before had they stood so close in the brightness of sunlight, on that first meeting days earlier. Each subsequent encounter had been in the shadows or illuminated merely by a lantern’s glow.

  Her knowledge was greater than it had been that day he’d rescued her. He was not simply a man blessed with a beautiful smile, or eyes as blue as a Highland sky. His character held as much fascination for her as his appearance.

  I could love you. The thought caught her in mid-breath.

  Slowly he untied the knot she had just tightened, his knuckles brushing the underside of her jaw.

  Unable to look away, Iseabal watched as Alisdair lowered his head, his whisper traveling like a breath across her temple.

  “I wish you wouldn’t wear it,” he said surprisingly, the low resonance of his voice causing another chill, this one through her entire body. “Your hair is too lovely to be kept covered.”

  Slipping the kerchief from her head, Alisdair speared his hands through her hair. As mischievous as the wind, and as determined, he pressed his hands against her scalp, the touch as strange and enticing as the smile he wore.

  Reaching up and gripping his wrists, Iseabal forced his hands down until they stood linked only by the touch of their fingertips. A tentative joining, mimicking their marriage. Her thumb began to trace his index finger, then slowed when Iseabal realized what she was doing.

  She pulled away, staring down at her hands rather than at him. In the bright light her knuckles were almost bulbous, her fingers callused from years of using sharp tools and working on stubborn stone. She clenched them into fists.

  “I am still a married woman, MacRae,” she said softly. However you might not wish it.

  “And I am still your husband,” he countered, to her surprise. “Have my wishes no bearing?”

  Glancing up, she saw that his smile had vanished, and his gaze, somber and direct, was filled with curiosity.

  He gripped both her hands, gently turning them over. Embedded in her palms was limestone dust, the result of years of carving stone. On the base of her right thumb was a faint scar, the D her father had carved.

  She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t release her.

  “Talented hands,” he murmured. “Those of a woman who chooses occupation rather than idle hours.”

  His words sounded absurdly like a compliment.

  The shouts of the men on the rigging, the creak of rope tightening against the spars, Rory’s triumphant whoop, the cook’s shout to line up for the noon meal—all these Iseabal heard as muffled sounds. Even the air seemed thicker, heavier, laden with the taste of brine.

  She was too fascinated with him, too curious, and too aware. He wanted nothing to do with her, wanted no bonds between them, yet now he stood as encapsulated in this moment as she.

  “Please,” he said, and it took a moment for her to understand. He didn’t wish her to wear her kertch.

  She nodded, reluctantly. He didn’t know what he was asking, she realized. Not to wear her kerchief was to portray herself as a single woman. But perhaps it was right and proper for her appearance to mirror her status in the world.

  Iseabal pulled away finally, bending to retrieve her tools. But he reached the leather sling first and passed it to her.

  “Thank you,” she said, looking anywhere but at his face.

  “Iseabal,” he began, only for her name to fade away between them.

  She moved away from him, turning at the end of the passageway to glance back. He had not moved from his position and they exchanged long looks before she retreated into the cabin. Regret tasted like tears, she thought, closing the door behind her.

  Chapter 12

  L ondon was a stain upon the horizon, great clouds of gray smoke looming over the city as if to mark it for the tired traveler. The harbor itself was a forest of masts, ships stacked together so tightly that Alisdair thought a man could reach the wharf by walking from deck to deck.

  As was common in crowded ports, Alisdair chose to berth the Fortitude in the harbor, using her small boats to ferry the crew ashore. Giving the order to Daniel, he stood against the bow railing, watching as the anchors were gradually lowered.

  Daniel was evading him of late, careful to carry out his orders, but just as cautious to avoid any personal conversations. In fact, he noted, his entire crew seemed to be going out of their way to avoid him. Which was just as well, Alisd
air thought. He was in no mood for superstitions or portents or reportings of Henrietta’s tail.

  The ship’s cat crossed his path, sending a sideways glance in Alisdair’s direction as if amused at his growing irritation.

  He had already dispatched Rory to the docks, to engage a carriage and driver for the journey to Brandidge Hall. According to his father’s directions, the Sherbourne estate was not far from London, and the distance easily traveled in an afternoon.

  Even though his cabin was located in the stern of the ship, he heard the door open. With his gaze now directed toward London, his senses were nevertheless attuned to Iseabal, making him aware of her in a way that surprised him. He could almost feel each one of her soft footfalls across the deck, hear her faint murmur as she greeted him. He should not have been able to discern the scent she wore over that of London’s busy port, but he could, detecting something green and woodsy and smelling of flowers all at the same time.

  Attired in a petticoat of red stripes and a jacket of red, she came and stood beside him. She had left her hair uncovered, spreading down her back like a thousand strands of ebony silk. Her face was pink with color, her attention directed toward London lying before them.

  “There are a great many ships,” she murmured.

  “It is said that sooner or later everyone travels to London.”

  “Have you been here before?” she asked, looking up at him.

  In the morning light she appeared almost radiant, he thought, then turned away before he could emulate James in waxing poetic.

  “No,” he answered. “I haven’t.”

  “You don’t like being in England,” Iseabal said.

  “No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”

  He had traded for silks in China, and for spices among the islands of the Pacific. He had seen France, marveling at its castles and cathedrals. Spain and Portugal held an allure, as did the American colonies. But he had not, until now, felt uncomfortable in his travels or choice of port.