When the Laird Returns

by Karen Ranney

  She crossed the land bridge slowly, noting the changes done in her absence. A triangular sail had been strung across a series of poles, providing an adequate shelter for the villagers, if not a luxurious one. A hot meal was being served, the cook waving a ladle at those not quick enough to come and eat. Blankets were being unrolled, old men and older women helped to what comfort Gilmuir now offered.

  As she rode into the encampment, the noise seemed to fade until Iseabal realized that she was again the object of attention. Dismounting, she leaned against the horse, feeling a trembling need to surrender to the grayness for a while. Exhaustion drained her, made the journey from Fernleigh feel as long as that to London. Worry held her tight as if it were a rope wound around her chest. For an hour or two, however, she wanted to feel nothing, be numb, pretend that Alisdair was aboard the Fortitude and would soon join her. Or convince herself that she was in the midst of a dream and none of this was real.

  But the fog of this grief was too thin and painful, allowing enough glimpses into the world to prove that all of it was actually happening.

  She straightened, realizing that only after Alisdair was found would she be able to relax.

  “You should come and rest,” a voice said.

  She glanced over her shoulder to find Brian there, a carefully bland expression on his face. Had she been rude to him? Had she offended him in some way? She couldn’t remember, and if an apology were necessary, it seemed beyond her.

  “Did you learn anything, mistress?”

  “I believe he’s been taken to Cormech.” If he’s alive.

  “Cormech?”

  “Where clansmen are sold as slaves,” Iseabal said dully. If she could distance herself from her birth, she would have. What part of her was most like her father? She would find it and excise it, remove it—whatever it was.

  “How soon can we leave?” she asked.

  “It isn’t safe in the darkness,” Brian said, stepping away from her.

  She would find Alisdair in a driving storm, at midnight, in the midst of a gale, she thought. Any time at all. But she understood the young man’s fears well enough. “There’s a road to Inverness,” she said. “From there we should be able to find our way to Cormech. Even in the dark.”

  He nodded and walked away. Paying no heed to the stones littering the courtyard, Iseabal walked to the edge of the cliff. A barrier of rock, knee-high, either man-made or crafted by nature, warned the wary that beyond this point was a steep drop to the loch below.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, Iseabal stood staring out over the water. Beyond her vision was Coneagh Firth, and still farther, the sea. Alisdair’s ocean.

  God would not give to her with one hand and take joy away with the other. Or perhaps that was how happiness came, in rare bursts that must be balanced with sorrow in order to appreciate them. Surely life was not set on such a delicate fulcrum of penance and pleasure. If so, she’d not valued those moments with Alisdair sufficiently, not nearly enough to offset the rest of her life without him.

  Turning, Iseabal walked back to the other side of the courtyard, passing a group of men milling around Brian. Torchlight revealed their somber faces and the surface of the map the young man was unrolling.

  Another group of men was placing lanterns around the perimeter of the ruins, working to the sound of their own thoughts. None of them, she noted, looked in her direction, and if they spoke among themselves, it was in such a hushed whisper she could not hear it.

  Iseabal could have pointed out those treacherous spots, those places where the ground felt weak or a leaning column should be avoided. But such a warning needed voice, and at the moment, she was incapable of speech.

  She kept walking, her feet smarting from the sharp stones, her hands pressed together so tightly that her wrists ached.

  At the cliffside once more, Iseabal stared out at the loch unthinkingly. The wind sighed low and mournfully around Gilmuir, as if fearing the depth of night. The stars seemed to blink as if the fast-moving clouds obscured their vision. Or perhaps they wept, each sparkle a droplet, each wisp of cloud a celestial finger brushing against a damp, starry eyelid.

  For a moment, just a moment, she allowed herself to think the worst. How could she bear it if he were dead? Alisdair, of the teasing smiles and the glint of humor in his lovely eyes. The man who ruffled the hair of his cabin boy and laughed aloud at another of Daniel’s superstitions. How easily it was to recall him bending over Patricia’s hand, or gently kissing her faded cheek. How much more painful to remember him only hours before, standing on the knoll with her, his eyes filled with an expression that made her heart feel buoyant.

  “If I might have a word with you, mistress?” Brian said from behind her. Iseabal turned, glancing over his shoulder at the small shelter the sailors had constructed.

  “We’ve tried to make you as comfortable as we could,” he said, leading the way.

  A surprisingly cozy place, she thought, the oiled canvas offering protection against the night, the brazier giving off warmth with strangely little smoke. Someone had built a creative bench of rocks for her, and a sleeping pallet had been arranged. She might have been at ease here at another time, when her mind was not filled with thoughts of Alisdair and her heart was not a stone.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Brian didn’t seem to expect more. Unrolling a map, he tilted it to the light. “I’ve a suggestion, mistress.” He curled the map back to show her. “We’re here,” he said, pointing to a spot. “And here’s Cormech,” he added, drawing his finger southwest. “On horseback, we’d have to circle Inverness and back up and around Moray Firth.”

  Iseabal remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

  “It would be a faster journey by sea,” he said, rolling up the map once again. “We can reach the port easier by taking the Fortitude.”

  “I gather it that the sail is from the Molly Brown, then?” she asked wryly, glancing over at the improvised shelter.

  “The captain is an understanding man,” Brian replied, a touch of wickedness to his grin. Iseabal couldn’t help but wonder what kind of inducements had been offered for him to be so.

  “Can we not leave now?” she asked quietly.

  “We’d never navigate around the cove,” he said, his eyes understanding. “But if we left at dawn, we’d still be there faster than if we traveled all night.”

  She nodded in reluctant agreement. “At dawn, then,” she said, wishing that she had the power to command the sun.

  He made a curious little bow before leaving her.

  Sitting on the stone bench, her feet flat on the ground, her knees at a perfectly squared angle, her head bent forward so she could study her clasped hands, Iseabal wondered if anyone peering into the tent would realize how close she was to crying.

  Alisdair blinked open his eyes, staring up at the sky above him. There should be stars, he thought, but in their place were gray clouds obscuring the moon like a gauzy veil.

  His head ached abominably, as if it had cracked open and his senses were lying in a pool beneath him. He smiled at the errant thought, willing his headache away. But instead of vanishing as each moment passed, it seemed to escalate, the pulse beat of his heart replicated by the hammers slamming against his skull.

  Along with the pain was another feeling, one rendering him even more uncomfortable. His thoughts were foggy, the very reason for his lying here unknown to him. He closed his eyes, focused on the last memory he had. Even that seemed elusive, as if the pain had taken over all of his mind.

  Stretching out his hand, Alisdair touched a coat sleeve. Turning his head, he saw a man sprawled in exhausted slumber beside him, and beyond him yet another. Fighting back the pain, he raised his head. There were scores of people in the open field, not merely men, but women and quietly sobbing children.

  Where was he? Who was he?

  Alisdair MacRae.

  He lay back down again, satisfied that his mind seemed to be working despit
e the pain. He captained a ship. More, he built them. His home? Cape Gilmuir, Nova Scotia.

  Reciting a litany of knowledge about himself, Alisdair realized the words were not as reassuring as he wished. Something was missing, some great part of his life, like a black and shadowed void.

  He lay flat, his legs straight, his toes pointed to the sky. A pose for his coffin, but even that thought was not as terrifying as the gaps in his knowledge.

  “Get up!” a voice shouted, and people began to rouse around him.

  A child cried and he winced at the sound, turning his head to see a woman raise herself up to shield her frightened child with her body. Above them stood the shrouded figure of a man. He drew back his boot and kicked again, but from here Alisdair couldn’t see if the other man had struck the child or not.

  “Didn’t I tell you to get up?”

  Alisdair felt his arms being jerked, and found himself being lifted by two men. He could stand, but the words to assure them of that fact wouldn’t come. All at once he wasn’t at all sure he could stand, let alone walk. But it didn’t seem to matter, because he was being dragged like a dead weight between the two men.

  He felt like a planed timber floating in the ocean. He was becoming waterlogged, sinking to the bottom of the sea, never to be found again.

  Chapter 28

  T he journey to Cormech was swiftly done, the Fortitude speeding across Moray Firth to the port town in a matter of hours. The ship’s sails were full and she seemed to skip over the water like a flattened stone.

  Iseabal stood on the bow, in a position Alisdair had often taken, her arms folded behind her, feet apart to absorb the thrumming of the current below them. If the ocean was truly a goddess, then perhaps it was she who sped the Fortitude on, as desperate and as lonely for Alisdair as Iseabal.

  Henrietta wound around her legs, and Iseabal bent to pick her up, feeling an odd comfort in rubbing her chin between the cat’s ears.

  The ruins of a castle greeted them from a nearby hill, not unlike the sight of Gilmuir itself. Only one tower remained of this place, a stark and lonely reminder of what had once been. There was so much destruction in this part of Scotland, ruins and deserted places that hinted at better times.

  Unlike in London, they found easy docking. Iseabal was in a fever of impatience until the ropes were tied and the Fortitude berthed. She was the first off the ship, not waiting until the ramp was stabilized. Turning back impatiently, she saw Brian standing at the rail, speaking to another man. The sailor handed a pistol to Brian and he promptly tucked it beneath his vest.

  She had the thought, as he joined her, that this past day had aged him. Perhaps she, also, had become older in appearance, bearing the signs of anger and grief on her face.

  “Teams of four men will begin on each side of the harbor, mistress, while we visit the harbormaster.”

  Iseabal nodded, grateful that he had come up with some kind of plan. She’d not thought the harbor to be so large, but if necessary, they’d search all the ships here, and every port, every inlet, every dock in the entire world.

  The visit to the harbormaster elicited the information that five ships were due to sail today, three had left yesterday, and a score more would sail tomorrow.

  “It would help if we knew the destinations,” Iseabal said.

  “They may have already sailed, mistress,” Brian cautioned, carefully averting his eyes.

  Iseabal remained silent, unable to refute the young man’s words since the thought had already occurred to her.

  Brian walked beside her on the pier, two sailors whose names she had forgotten behind him. A woman and three men, not an untoward sight, except for her appearance, perhaps. Her eyes were gritty with unshed tears, and a night spent in prayers rather than sleep. Her feet felt leaden, and there was a fluttering in her stomach as if she trembled inside.

  At the first vessel, Brian preceded her up the ramp. “Permission to come aboard,” he called out. A weathered old man granted it with a nod.

  Sailors milling about the deck stilled, watching them with interest. The ship was much older than the Fortitude, evident by her weathered rails and masts, but kept as neat as Alisdair’s ship.

  “I’m Iseabal MacRae,” she said, stepping to Brian’s side and addressing the man.

  “And I’m Patrick Hanoran, the captain of the Starling,” he countered, his brown eyes twinkling. He was not, she noted, as old as he had appeared at first sight. Although his beard was gray, his hair was only lightly touched with silver.

  “Have you taken aboard any passengers since yesterday?” Brian asked.

  “I’ve not,” the captain said, his gaze trailing from the hem of Iseabal’s petticoat to the collar of her jacket.

  “I’m looking for my husband,” she said frostily, irritated at his perusal.

  “What makes you think I have him?” he asked, leaning nonchalantly against the rail.

  “We think he’s been sold into slavery,” she said, the words so sharp they seemed to claw at her throat.

  He straightened, folding his arms in front of his chest. “That’s an insult you offer me, madam,” he said stonily. “I’ll carry powder for the English before I turn my ship into a slave trader.”

  “Do you know of one who might?” she asked, holding her breath at his answer. The ship next to mine, he might say. Or the one down the pier. Or he might even speak the words she feared, telling her that a ship had left this morning, carrying a cargo of human misery. Instead, he only shook his head.

  “I’ve nothing to do with men like that,” he said. “I trade tobacco and rum for wool,” he added. “And that’s all.”

  Moving away, he gave a series of orders to his men, effectively dismissing her.

  Turning, she caught a glimpse of Brian’s face, carefully expressionless. She had often looked the same in order to hide the truth of her feelings.

  “He’s here,” she said, placing her hand on his arm. Perhaps the greatest act of courage might simply be voicing hope. “He’s here,” she said again, her voice strong and resolute.

  Brian said nothing and she finally released his sleeve.

  A bit of foolishness, perhaps, but she so wanted Alisdair to be within arm’s reach that she could almost feel him nearby.

  “You mustn’t grieve for her, sir,” the young chambermaid said. “She wouldn’t want that at all.”

  James glanced over at her. For all her words, her eyes were bloodshot and her cheerfulness seemed forced. All of the servants at Brandidge Hall appeared similarly affected, as if the countess had not been simply an employer, but much beloved.

  “She was an old lady, sir, and you and your brothers made these last days full of joy for her.”

  “Two days only,” he said, wishing it had been more.

  “An important two days,” she said unexpectedly. “She died happy.”

  He waited until she left the library before directing his attention to his journal once again.

  Patricia, Dowager Countess of Sherbourne, died in her sleep the night past. Surely Heaven will open its gates to one such as she. She became a grandmother to us all, gifting the MacRaes with a blessed sense of belonging in this strange land.

  James laid down his quill, his attention directed to the view. The desk he used sat before a large mullioned window, and the vista revealed a misty dawn.

  Brandidge Hall was a solemn place, as if peopled by ghosts at this moment. Not a sound intruded, or a voice, and if there were footsteps they were inaudible to his ears. He might have been alone with only the fog for company.

  Glancing down at the book in front of him, he began to write again. The journal was the recipient of his most private thoughts. In it he could distill to words the variety of his experiences and thereby forever recall each minute. Sometimes, in rare moments like now, James wished that he might be able to change the deed itself.

  But as the chambermaid had said, Patricia was old, and death comes more swiftly to the aged.

  Their plans we
re to have left for London an hour ago, but the news of Patricia’s passing had altered their schedules. They would attend the countess’s funeral and only then return to their ship and to yet another distant destination, that of Scotland and Gilmuir.

  They had made their way to five ships, but on each one the sailors had denied knowing of Alisdair’s whereabouts.

  “They won’t tell us anything,” Iseabal said as they walked up the ramp to the next ship.

  “Sailors are notoriously closemouthed,” Brian replied. “They won’t tell tales, but they might slip a word or two at a tavern.”

  She glanced at him. “Do you think it would be worth our while to seek out the nearest tavern?”

  “Only if you remain aboard the Fortitude. Such a place is not for you, mistress.”

  She frowned at him, but decided that she would argue with him later. For now, Iseabal stood to the side as Brian addressed the sailor at the railing.

  “I’ve no knowledge of the man you seek. The captain’s ashore and you’ll have to speak with him.”

  “Where?” Brian asked.

  “I’ll not be telling the captain’s business,” the man replied. “It’s worth the skin on my back.”

  Iseabal and the three men turned to make their way back down the gangplank when she abruptly stopped, halted by a sound. The faint mewling of a kitten. Or an infant.

  “Did you hear something, Brian?” she asked, glancing back at the ship.

  “Yes,” he said, nodding. “A child.”

  After making their way back on deck, Brian faced down the other man.

  “How is it that there’s a child aboard when you said you’d taken on no passengers?”

  The sailor didn’t answer, choosing instead to stare at them stonily.

  “Give me your pistol, Brian,” Iseabal said, holding out her hand.