Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (24 page)

And whenever they did, his body reacted strongly.

“Why do you think I should put more trust in your men than in you?”

“Because I watch them, and they know better than to anger me. But they would do nowt to make
me
mind
my
manners.”

“Now you are jesting, sir,” she said. “I have learned
that you are a man who leads by example. I do not believe you would do aught to undermine the influence that such leadership gives you over your men.”

“Do you not? Then you do not know the power
you
wield,” he said. “Take your apple now and those rolls, and go sit in the sun.”

To his infinite relief, she obeyed.

Even so, he took himself to task. How he could have spoken to her so, he could not imagine. Nonetheless, he had felt impelled to warn her that she should not take chances where he was concerned.

In troth, her very presence shoogled his internals, as he had been wont to say as a child. For that reason, if for no other, she was more dangerous to him than any woman he had met before her. And she was utterly forbidden fruit.

Although she now spoke of Clyne in the past tense, Jake could not. He had an uneasy feeling that if he began to accept that Clyne was dead, the damned fool would reappear, insufferably alive, and reclaim his lovely wife.

The voice in his head muttered,
And what if you learn that he
is
dead?

Stepping onto the deck, Jake drew a deep breath of the wondrous air and let it out again, trying to banish the question from his mind. But it would not go. The fact was that, with Clyne out of the picture, Alyson MacGillivray could pose a greater threat to Jake’s continued freedom than he had ever known.

All that remained of the past fortnight’s turbulent weather was a northeasterly wind and the scattered, scudding white clouds that flew before it. Sitting in the shelter of the stern
castle, using the high, stepped, portside wall as her backrest, Alyson realized that the
Sea Wolf
’s heading just then kept the wind at their back and thus sheltered her from it.

The men were rowing, as they often did to increase the ship’s speed and keep it on its course when it tacked back and forth against the wind. The oarsmen’s rhythm and the warmth of the sun were relaxing. In many ways, the small ship was more enjoyable than the
Maryenknyght
had been.

The wind in the big, square sail remained steady. Gulls screeched overhead, and wiser ones would soon see that she was eating. She had learned that they would follow alongside the ship, hoping to catch scraps.

Her thoughts drifted so for just a short time before they shifted to Jake and what he’d told her about the marriage bed. Such things ought perhaps to have been embarrassing to discuss, but she felt no embarrassment with him. His quick understanding of what she had tried to say had made it easy to talk to him.

If she felt anything beyond a vague satisfaction at learning that what she’d suspected about her marriage was true, it was curiosity to know more.

Recalling Jake’s moment of anger and his agreement that her marriage had not been all that it might have been, she considered his reaction for a moment or two. He had also assumed, at first, that Niall must have bedded her often.

When she denied that that was the case, he’d said that Niall must have lacked a passionate nature. She tried to imagine a passionate Niall and failed. He had always been kind and friendly. But even as a child, he’d let her make the decisions about what they would do.

The truth was that Niall had been a comfortable friend. Knowing only what she had about marriage, she had
thought he would make her a comfortable husband and provide her escape from the cares of MacGillivray House. She had expected to live with him at Braehead Tower or Ardloch. How wrong she had been!

The ship turned then so that a chilly wind struck her, and the sunny bench lost its appeal. Seeing Will chatting with oarsmen, she asked the boy if he’d like to improve his skill at the game of dames, and he readily agreed.

During the following three days, she began to suspect that Jake was avoiding her. He was polite and informative if she asked him questions, and he saw to her needs by sending Will to inquire about them and to do what he could to serve them. But the few times that she happened to meet Jake on deck, he seemed to take exceptional care to talk only briefly and never to touch her.

She had gained her sea legs, as he called them, although they were naught to match his own. She’d seen him move agilely in a coble tossing wildly on the sea, run from one end to the other of the
Sea Wolf
’s gangway, and to her shock, even walk along the ship’s railing as if such feats were of no consequence! Although she was pleased that she no longer needed a steadying hand to move about, she would have preferred to enjoy more of his company.

The next day, Wednesday, passed as others had. But as she lay in bed that night, ready for sleep, she suddenly found herself in a royal audience chamber, watching Mungo talk to Albany. Although both men’s lips moved, the scene remained silent, and darkness soon enveloped them… and her.

When she awoke the next morning, she vividly remembered the scene and wondered if she should tell Jake, but decided it had been just an ordinary dream stirred by their
suspicion that Albany had arranged Jamie’s capture. After all, she had not awakened from it in distress. She had slept soundly until morning.

By Thursday afternoon, they were nearer the coast than usual when Jake came to tell her they were nearing Berwick-on-Tweed. “I expect you know that for much of history, the river Tweed has formed our border with England,” he said. “At present, Berwick lies in English hands, but eventually we’ll win it back.”

“We’re near the line, then?”

“Aye, we’ll see Scotland before sundown.”

As promised, they watched the sunset from Scottish waters. Jake sent men ashore to hunt rabbits for the next day’s stew and to fetch fresh water. But although Alyson was elated to be in safe waters again, darker emotions tempered her delight. Had she escaped, she wondered, only to return to the unrewarding family life that she had known before and after her marriage?

That night, even the thick featherbed and quilt were not cozy enough to encourage sleep. Once again, she and Will had spent much of the day playing dames. She had taught him some new tactics, but they had both tired of the game. Although Will was an amusing companion, having so little to do was difficult. Both of them were accustomed to greater activity.

How she was to sleep when she felt so wide awake, Alyson did not know.

At last, when moonlight shining through an open porthole touched her face, she abandoned any thought of sleep, got up, and put on the kirtle she’d taken off earlier. Lacing it up the front, she pulled on her boots, donned her cloak, and stepped out onto the moonlit deck.

Mace stood at the helm. All of the other oarsmen were resting or sleeping, and she realized that the wind was behind them, filling the sail as they sped northward through the water just off the Scottish coast.

The moon was bright, midway between a half-moon and a full one. Hanging well above the eastern horizon to her right, it spilled a wide, silvery path across the shimmering water to the
Sea Wolf
.

Savoring the night’s beauty, she nodded to Mace as she went past him to the seaward railing to see if the moonlit path came right to the ship.

Below, all was silvery and white, as if the ship had split the moon’s foamy pathway, making it swirl round the
Sea Wolf
fore and aft as it sailed. The sea was beautiful, vital, and vast. She could easily imagine herself far from any land, in a place shimmering just as the sea was, shimmering, wavering, and…

She saw him, lying in the darkness, slumped against a wall. He was not moving, and a chill formed in her chest, radiating outward with a swiftness that terrified her. Although she could not see his face, she knew it was Jake. She would recognize him anywhere, in any light. She could feel his nearness. But when she tried to go to him, her feet refused to move. Then she saw herself gliding toward him, kneeling swiftly, sorrowfully, slipping an arm around him. Only it was too late. She could sense that he wasn’t Jake anymore.

Atop the stern cabin, leaning lazily against the sternpost, Jake watched Alyson move to the steerboard railing and look over it. Most of the lads were asleep. Two lay on the
gangway near the mast, ready to leap up and tend sail or jib if necessary. With the steady wind, it was unlikely they’d have to do so.

Will had gone below and was doubtless asleep in his hammock.

Alyson pushed off her hood, and moonlight gleamed on her hair, turning it as silvery as the light on the water. She looked wraithlike, the sort of specter that some folks insisted they’d seen haunting Stirling and other old castles.

He did not believe in ghosts, so the thought of her as one made him smile. He remembered his boyish terror of boggarts, worricows, and their like. On a night like this, however, he believed only in the mystery and magnificence of the sea, and thanked God again for granting him the freedom to spend his life on it.

So certain was he in that moment that his way of living would never change that when he felt the urge to talk with her, he succumbed to it. Rising, he walked silently to the portside edge of the roof where it met the stepped stem rail, then along the first step, down to the next, and from it to the next.

Long practice made the skill second nature to him. One of the stays for the mast slightly impeded his way. But even that, he negotiated easily.

Stepping down to the bench on which she liked to sit, and then to the deck, he moved toward her in his usual quiet way. When she did not turn, apparently deaf to his approach, he said quietly, “Lass, I don’t want to startle—”

She whirled with a shriek and stumbled, catching herself at the rail. In an abnormally high voice, she exclaimed, “Wherever did
you
spring from?”

“Up there,” he said, pointing. “Come and I’ll show you.”

“You must be daft.”

“Not I. Just step on your bench yonder, and I’ll help you up.”

Alyson stared at him, her mouth open to protest. But Jake grinned, and she shut it again. If he said she could do it, she could.

As they crossed the afterdeck to the bench, she cast a glance at Mace. But his face remained expressionless, as if they were invisible.

Jake, too, was silent.

At the bench, she started to gather her skirts.

“I’ll take your cloak up first,” Jake said. “It will be easier for you not to have to manage it and your skirts as well. I’ll put it where it will be safe.”

She handed him the cloak and watched in amazement as he stepped onto the bench, then to the solid rail, and up, from one step to the next as if he were on a normal stairway, rather than one with risers over a foot high and the icy sea below.

“Are you sure I can do that?” she asked when he reached the cabin roof.

“Unless you fall in, aye,” he said, descending to the first step again. “But I won’t let you fall. Give me your hands.”

She did as he bade her, and he gripped them firmly in his own warm ones. Then, clearly as a second thought, he said, “Can you kilt up your skirt in front, under your lacing? You’ll do better if you can see where you put your feet.”