Tempest in the Highlands (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) Page 6

  “Who are you?” Gillie demanded.

  “I’m Sir Ralph Evers, and we need to go now, with the tide. My ship is waiting.”

  The lad was a lass.

  Rob shook his head in amusement as he tried to make his way down the face of the cliff.

  She had fooled them all—him, his crew, everyone. And the signs had been there. All someone had to do was pay attention. And that wasn’t the end of it. She was not kitchen help at Tarbert Castle.

  Her hands showed not one callus, and from her attitude and the way she spoke it was clear she was accustomed to giving orders rather than taking them. She was no servant, at all.

  Since stepping out of the loch, he’d been trying to decide whether this was Miranda MacDonnell herself. The lass had jumped into a stormy sea to save his life. Who else could she be?

  Rob recalled what he’d been told by the priest of Miranda’s bravery—of how she selflessly responded to all cries for assistance, helping and even saving others in her clan. The lad said the same thing on the cliffs, that he—or rather, she—acted without thinking. The two had to be the same person.

  The rest of the priest’s words were fresh in Rob’s mind. Evers’s pursuit of Miranda. How she’d gone missing. And to think she was trapped on this island with him. Perhaps hunting the rogue commander wouldn’t be so difficult now that Rob knew he had Evers’s quarry in his possession.

  But would he do that to her? Use her as bait? Put her life in danger? After all, the lass had saved his life twice.

  There was plenty of time to decide on that, Rob decided. For now, the two of them were trapped on an island with no sign of another person anywhere.

  Sliding a few feet on the crumbling slope, Rob silently cursed himself for not paying close enough attention to where he was climbing. But soon he realized that footholds that looked solid were crumbling when he put any weight on them. Shrubs growing hardily from cracks in the cliff pulled away, roots and all. A small seabird appeared from a notch in the rock face, pecked viciously at Rob’s fingers, and then flew at his eyes.

  Everything Rob reached for proved dangerous. Throw in the thick fog that reduced visibility to little more than his arm’s length, and the message came through loud and clear. Climbing down to the sea here could be fatal.

  Retracing his route upward, Rob had low expectations that his companion might have found them something to eat. After all, he hadn’t been gone very long. Still, the nothing that awaited him as he climbed up over the edge was a surprise. No fire. No supper. No sight of her.

  “Don’t disappear on me now,” he muttered. “Gavin!”

  The only response was the squawking cry of birds startled along the cliffs.

  There was no sign of her down the hill or toward the loch. His mind immediately turned to everything that might have gone wrong. She could have slipped and fallen off the cliff, though he’d heard no cry. She might have decided he’d learned the truth and elected to run—going off into the interior of the island on her own. Rob had no clue what motivated her or what she feared. He doubted she’d tell him, if confronted, what made her join his crew only to end up here. From the tone of her questions about his reasons for showing up at Tarbert Castle, he knew she didn’t trust him.

  “Gavin,” he called again.

  He shouldn’t have left her alone. She was tough and strong, but she was too small to defend herself against anyone or anything. Rob turned toward the promontory to the south. Worry was gaining a hold on him.

  “Gavin!”

  A muffled reply came back to him, but he wasn’t sure if it was the echo of his own voice. Or perhaps it was just a bird. He called out again and waited. Nothing.

  Rob started to climb, thinking he’d at least get a better view of the terrain from above.

  He stopped on a ledge and shouted again. This time Rob was certain she responded. She was somewhere above. Climbing again, he repeatedly stopped and shouted the name.

  Whatever was driving Rob now, it was more than making good on the debt he owed her. It definitely had nothing to do with the advantage she gave him in finding Evers.

  When he’d held her hands to check the cuts on her palm, the lass had been close enough for Rob to see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes and admire her features. The beautifully arched eyebrows. The shape of her soft, full lips. The curve of her chin. The high cheekbones. The slender neck and small ears. He couldn’t deny it. She was beautiful, and he was enamored.

  Reaching another ledge, he heard her voice again. The shout was muffled, but Rob had no doubt. He called out once more.

  Following the sound, Rob spotted a fissure in the rock ledge.

  “What the devil are you doing down there?” he asked, standing over the crevice.

  Below the opening, the space widened slightly and then dropped away into a dark void. Miranda had wedged herself into a narrow spot a few feet down, but now she was unable to reach the top.

  “Help me out of here.” Her voice sounded strained and short of breath.

  “What happened?”

  A pale face turned upward to the light. “I found the Peregrine. It’s actually riding at anchor just below me. In fact, I’m standing on the very top of the mainmast. Now get me out,” she shouted.

  Getting down on his hands and knees, Rob was happy that she hadn’t lost her sense of humor. “Fine work!”

  “Do you see anyone about out there?”

  Rob looked about him. “Nay, there’s no one. Did you see someone?”

  “I’ll tell you what I saw when I’m out of this hole.”

  Rob reached inside the crevice, but she was just beyond his reach. Stretching himself down into the fissure, he reached for her again.

  “Take my hand.”

  Miranda’s footing slipped and she began to drop. With a lunge that nearly sent him in, Rob grabbed the thin wrist. Backing out, he drew her up, depositing her on the ledge. It took great effort not to hold her, not to try to comfort her.

  She sank down on the rock, visibly shaken. She’d scraped her knuckles badly, and bloodied skin showed through holes in the knees of her breeches and the elbows of her tunic. That lasted only a moment, for she was quickly on her feet. She looked around them as if she expected an attack.

  “Why didn’t you wait where I left you?” Rob demanded, standing up.

  “I saw someone. A man.”

  “You aren’t joking?”

  “Nay. I saw him. On this ledge. That’s why I climbed up.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  She shook her head. “By the time I got up here, he was nowhere in sight.”

  “So how did you fall into this hole?”

  “I didn’t fall.” She shivered, looking around her again. “He picked me up like I was a bundle of sticks and threw me in.”

  Chapter 8

  Miranda knew about fear.

  In some ways, it had always played a role in her life. Fear of being confined in small dark places. Fear of her father. Fear of being too slow or too ineffective when she needed to act after one of Muirne’s visions. Fear of her mother being hanged or burned as a witch. Fear of being left alone when her mother’s health began to fail. And after learning she had a brother, fear of failing to reunite with him.

  Those fears were constantly pulling, like an ever-present current that threatened to drag her out to sea beneath the waves.

  What she felt now was different. This fear struck her sharp and cold, momentarily numbing any ability to respond. She’d not seen the man behind her, but she felt a presence of overwhelming strength. He didn’t creep up on her; he simply emerged as if from the earth and seized her. She’d been helpless. When he took hold of her, her arms had been locked at her sides as if encircled with an iron band. She hadn’t even had time to cry out or turn her head. He simply raised her high into the air and threw her directly into the crevice.

  Confined there with the walls pressing in on her, she might as well have been thrown into a grave and covered with dirt.
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  She shivered. She was lucky she wasn’t more seriously injured. Or killed. But when she felt herself stuck in that narrow space, the panic began to rise. Why was it that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe when that happened?

  The plain truth was that she was terrified being trapped in that crevice, not knowing whether Hawk would find her. Recognizing the danger of panicking, she’d closed her eyes and imagined herself running barefoot through open fields.

  With her eyes still closed, she’d worked her way up between the stone walls as far as she could, but she couldn’t reach the top. Stuck there, listening for any sign from above, she’d heard other sounds. Though they seemed to come from some place far below her in the earth, she felt them deep in her belly. They were low and powerful and resonant, like the booming sounds of thunder rolling in from a great distance.

  And as she waited, she pictured in her mind Rob Hawkins running with her in those fields, knowing she was a woman and holding her hand. She stopped worrying about her nightmarish assailant returning. Instead, to her surprise, her heart began to ache with fear for Hawk. What if the man who had left her here was waiting for him at the top of the cliffs? What if Hawk reached the top safely, only to be taken by surprise and thrown to certain death on the rocks below?

  Her heart had lifted when she heard him calling.

  Now safely above ground, she leaned against the rock wall with her knife in her hand, waiting for Hawk to return.

  She could see him above her on the ridge, trying to spot her assailant even as he kept an eye on her. A few moments later, he dropped back down to the rock ledge and peered into the fissure.

  “He pushed you down that hole and you didn’t see him coming?”

  “I told you already. He picked me up from behind and threw me in there like a slab of mutton.”

  “And he said nothing to you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “So you can’t describe him at all? And you’re certain he wasn’t one of my crew settling scores with your impudent arse?”

  “Nay, the man was a giant. You have no giants on your crew.”

  “How do you know he was a giant?”

  “I saw his shadow on that rock as he lifted me high in the air.” She stepped into the sun, pointing at the place. “I’m telling you, he was tall, wide, big.”

  His expression showed his disbelief.

  “He lifted me like I was a feather.”

  “I’m sorry to have to break it to you, but you’re a scrawny thing.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Hawk looked at the opening he’d pulled her from. “Well, I doubt you’d climb up here and fall into this hole on your own.”

  He was taking her seriously. She was relieved. “Who do you think it was?”

  “Passing ships don’t stop here, but it’s possible others are living on this island. And it could very well be that they’re hostile to strangers.” He looked up at the top of the ridge. “At least, this fellow is.”

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “What we set out to do before. We couldn’t get around the island by the way of the beach. And the cave we stayed in last night ended not just beyond where we slept.” He looked out toward the sea. “We’ll climb over these ridges, stay close to the coast, and hope we can find some way of getting off the island.”

  She followed the direction of his gaze.

  “The land south of here curves to the west. We could see that when we were down by the bluffs. Once we get clear of these hills, we might just get a better view of the shoreline and the sea. Maybe we’ll find island folk or some of my crew. Anyway, that’s our plan—travel south along the coast until we find someone.”

  Miranda looked up at the top. There were so many potential dangers. It would be very easy for a strong man to slip out of the shadows and push them to their deaths.

  “What if he comes after us?” she asked. “What if he’s waiting for us . . . with others? What if this is an island of giants?”

  “Then we talk to them. Maybe get them to help us. If his intention was to kill us, you’d already be dead, don’t you think?” His composure was frustrating.

  “Maybe that fissure was intended to be my grave.”

  Hawk’s hand reached for hers, but then he dropped it to his side. “Look, I know getting tossed about frightened you a little—”

  “I’m not frightened. I’m just using my head.”

  “I’m not against you using your head, but let’s not lose heart.”

  Of course she was frightened. She had every right to be, though she wasn’t about to admit it to him. She was a woman dressed as a man, and she’d stolen onto a ship full of pirates. And now she was shipwrecked with the most notorious Englishman to sail the seven seas. And not shipwrecked on just any island. On the Isle of the Dead. An island populated with at least one very large man that she’d seen so far.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We don’t want to be navigating through these hills in the dark.”

  “I’m waiting for you,” she replied, looking as bold as she could muster.

  He led the way, moving toward the top of the ridge. As they climbed, Miranda scrutinized every jutting boulder, every ledge above them, every shadow. Constantly alert to the sounds of the wind and the cries of birds wheeling above, she kept an eye over her shoulder, making certain no one was behind them.

  The sun moved across the sky and when they reached the summit, she saw the land dropped away more gradually to a valley. More hills they would need to traverse lay to the south, but not as rugged or as high as the one they just climbed. To the west, she saw no change in the thick fog obstructing their view of the sea.

  Miranda stopped by a twisted tree and pulled off a dead branch. Holding it with two hands, she swung it like a club.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Hawk stopped, watching her.

  Crouching, she broke off the twigs from the shaft of her weapon. “Isn’t it obvious? Someone needs to protect you.”

  He shook his head. “That won’t bring down your man. And that thing won’t be very effective, either,” he said, seeing her hand go to the knife at her belt. “Just follow my orders and stay within reach at all times.”

  “I would, but you’re the one who abandoned me and went down the cliffs.”

  “You weren’t abandoned. And if you stayed where I left you, nothing would have happened to you.”

  “So you say, but I think I’ll hold on to my club.”

  He shook his head with obvious amusement. “Let’s keep moving.”

  He offered a hand to help her up and she took it. At the touch of their hands, the same image of the two of them in a cave rushed into her mind. He was studying her face, too close for comfort. Miranda stopped breathing. She stared at his full lips, at the clean lines of his jaw beneath the growth of beard, and excitement stirred deep in her belly. Her cheeks grew warm, and caught in the vision, a soft tingle spread across her skin as she imagined what it felt like to be kissed by him. She tore her hand free and he turned away.

  Able to breathe again, she hurried after him.

  Her reaction to him was unacceptable. Her breathless response was dangerous. Her situation was difficult enough. She couldn’t let herself give in to any attraction. This was all too complicated, as it was. She didn’t need to make matters worse.

  He slowed down until she was walking beside him. He was keeping her within arm’s reach. “I still can’t imagine how you survived.”

  “Survived your crew drowning me?”

  “Aye, that,” he snorted. “And at Tarbert Castle, too.”

  “It’s simple. People love me.”

  “Ha!” he laughed. “More likely they put up with you because of your looks.”

  Her eyes darted toward him and she missed a step, stumbling forward and dropping her stick. He grabbed her by the shoulder before she could go down, and she winced.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” he continued, hauling her upright. “They
feel sorry for a lad no bigger than a . . .”

  She shook off his hand and flexed her shoulder.

  “Blast me,” he said. “That shoulder of yours is still bothering you. Let me see.”

  “I’m fine, Hawk.” She pushed his hand away as he reached for her again. “And you’re right about my looks. The maids of Kintyre were always looking after me.”

  He laughed out loud, his gaze resting on her face for a long moment. There was something in his guarded expression that she couldn’t identify. A private joke that Miranda felt she was left out of.

  “No doubt that big stick of yours, as well.”

  Miranda started moving down the hill again, and Hawk strode alongside her. It was safe to say no one had ever said that about her before.

  “So who was your first?” The tenor of his voice felt like a caress.

  Miranda forced herself to keep her eyes on the ground in front of her. She had no experience with men. But she had two ears, and she’d traveled much with Muirne over the years. Many times, they slept in rooms packed with other pilgrims. The marriage bed and childbearing were often discussed, and usually in the plainest and bawdiest of terms. And whatever she lacked in knowledge after those conversations, she’d picked up quickly listening to the sexual exploits of the sailors serving on the Peregrine. Why was it that men, in particular, loved to talk about their own prowess?

  “Do you expect me to remember?” she said finally. “There have been so many.”

  He laughed again, this time harder. The look he sent her was a shade more secretive. “Being a mite smug, now. So many that you’ve already forgotten your first one? Who forgets their first time?”

  Miranda shrugged, moving away from him a little as they continued to descend. She prayed he’d talk of something else, but she couldn’t get her brain to work and suggest another line of conversation. The real problem was that she couldn’t stop thinking of his lips, his hazel eyes, the sun glistening on his muscled chest and arms.