The Chieftain (5 page)

He shouted loudly in Gaelic, and she heard an answering call from somewhere outside. After a few moments Hector entered, stooping scarcely at all as he passed the other man, and came to stand at her side. The door closed softly, and they were alone. His eyes, dark like those of the man who had left them, yet had none of the malicious gleam she had faced just now.

But there was little to comfort her in that. For this was the man who had brought her here, and ruined her life. And if, as she thought, the red-haired Highlander had struck the blow that had felled her in her moment of flight, it was for Hector he had done it, and at Hector’s command.

Helpless, she lay back on the hard mattress and gazed at Hector with listless unhappy eyes. His expression, watching her, was as enigmatic as ever, though she thought there was satisfaction in it somewhere.

‘So, Mrs MacLean,’ he said softly, ‘you have come to your senses at last. You did a foolish thing. You might have been killed.’

She wondered fleetingly whether the runaway pony or the red-haired Highlander had posed the greater threat to her life, but there seemed little point in asking. She said only, in a voice harsh between dry lips: ‘Or I might have escaped from you—’
 

He smiled faintly, and shook his head. ‘No, Isobel, not that. Not ever.’

She shivered, and tried to turn her face away from him, but the effort needed was too much for her. She closed her eyes instead.

‘They will bring food and drink,’ Hector went on briskly. ‘Then you will be better.’
 

She doubted it, but she found he was right, to some degree. The food was unexciting, but she was hungrier than she had expected, and the rough bread was fresh and satisfying, the cheese good, the water clear and cool. They left her alone while she ate, and when she had finished she fell into the deep sleep of exhaustion.

When she woke again a watery gleam of sunlight was slanting across the floor of the tiny cabin. She noticed, too, that the fierce heaving of the boat had subsided to a gentle, barely perceptible, rocking motion. Had they reached their destination?

She sat up, relieved that her head no longer ached, though she could still feel the bruise on her skull. She could almost touch the door from her bed, so small was the room, but not quite. She rose cautiously onto unsteady legs and took the two steps that brought the latch within reach of her hand.

It was locked, of course. She might have known that it would be. She moved instead to the little square unglazed window, and felt the cool freshness of sea wind on her face. The grey-blue surface of the sea beyond dazzled her eyes after the dimness of her room. They must be close to the shore, for she could see a thin edge of green beyond the water, as of a hillside rising steeply. It was very quiet. There was no sound of feet on the deck, no clamour of voices, no land-noises from further off. Only the solitary mournful mewing cry of a gull broke the silence.

She stood gazing out and listening for some time, and then sudden panic seized her. Where were they all? What had happened? Was she alone here on the ship, locked up, in some deserted harbour where she would never be found?

She ran to the door and began to pound on it with her fists. The sound seemed pitifully feeble against the gentle lap of the waves, the cry of the gulls.

‘Where are you? Let me out!’ she cried, her voice breaking with disuse and terror. And then relief overwhelmed her as she heard an answering step from outside. Even the company of that grim follower of Hector’s would be preferable to being deserted, a forgotten prisoner, on some strange coast. She sank down on the mattress and waited.

It was Hector himself who came in, his brows drawn together in a frown. ‘What ails you, woman?’ he demanded. ‘You’ve all you need, have you not? There is no call for you to be making that din.’

All I need!
she thought, gazing at him wide-eyed.
How can anyone be so stupid, so insensitive? I am his prisoner, taken from all I know and love, and he can imagine for one moment that I have all I need!
A great lump threatened to choke her, and she felt the tears fill her eyes, but she would not let them fall.
He shall not have that satisfaction,
she thought. Fiercely, she cleared her throat and asked, as coolly as she could:

‘What has happened? Have we reached your... Where—?’

‘Ardshee?’ He shook his head. ‘We are anchored here until the wind changes, to give the rowers a rest. That is all.’

He was silent then, and stood looking down at her, deep in some unreadable thoughts of his own. She watched him uncomfortably, unable to think of anything to say, but longing to break the silence.

In the end he broke it himself, saying abruptly: ‘They are on shore just now.’

So we are alone,
she thought; not quite sure why that should make her shiver.

But a moment later she knew; for he reached out suddenly and drew her to her feet and into his arms, his grasp relentless about her. For an instant she stiffened, her palms against his shoulders, turning her head aside with close-shut mouth. Then—

Not again!
said her wildly thudding heart, and her weakening limbs, and she did not know what exactly it was that she feared; or indeed if this was fear at all.

Whatever it was there was no escape. His mouth found hers, warm, ruthless, demanding, and all her resistance melted, more quickly, more surely, than it had that first time. The protests of her brain were stilled, drowned in a wave of desire and longing. Her arms lifted and slid about his neck and he carried her to that narrow bed; and there, for the second time, Hector made her his own.

When, later, he had drawn away from her, and straightened his clothes and left her without a word, she knew exactly what she had feared so much, as his arms had closed about her.
 

At that moment it had not been the harm he could do to her that had frightened her, or the fact that she was a helpless captive, or her loneliness, or any other fear that would have been natural enough in the circumstances. No, what frightened her lay in herself, a terrible, newly-discovered weakness to which, shamefully, this man she hated held the key. One touch of his fingers, one fierce meeting of his mouth with hers, and he had her entirely in his power, lost and helpless. All her hatred, all she ought to feel for a man who had so deeply wronged her, could be swept away in an instant by the wild call of his blood to hers. Only for that little while, until, his lust satisfied, he had turned from her, all interest gone; only until shame and self-disgust swept over her, that she should be so weak.

Trembling now, she closed her eyes and clenched her fists and tried somehow to believe that when next he came to her - as he surely would - she would meet his passion with coldness and anger, so that he would only be able to take her by force, or not at all. But the lingering contentment of her body, half-naked on the narrow bed, gave the lie to her hopes. Perhaps, in time, when passion was no longer new to her, or strange...

Voices calling on deck roused her from her thoughts, and a little later they brought more food to her. And then, towards evening, the creaking of timbers, the resumption of the strange chanting song of the oarsmen, the rapidly increasing motion of the boat, told her that they had set sail once more. She did not see Hector again that day.

Chapter Four

The night seemed interminable. Isobel did not sleep again, for last night’s rest had taken the edge from her exhaustion and she was too unhappy to be able to find that simple refuge from her misery. Even to lie on the bed, inactive, had become too much of an ordeal, for then the confused, bewildering emotions, the dreadful fears, rose up clamorously in her brain and brought her close to crying out.

So for most of the night she paced the uneven floor of the tiny cabin, or stood at the window, gazing out at the black heaving waters, finding a little refreshment in the salt spray on her face.

Once she wept, long slow sobs that went on and on as if her heart would break. But in the end they too ceased to offer any relief, for she had no hope of comfort.

At home, or during the years of James Carnegie’s illness, even at her worst moments there had always been friends to bring her affection and tenderness, people who loved her and wanted to help her. It had never been as bad as this.

That, she thought, was the worst part of her present plight. When she had married James Carnegie - in willing obedience to her parents, trusting the choice they had made for her - she had still been afraid, a young girl facing the unknown, aware that she had promised to give herself to a man she scarcely knew and did not love. But those she
did
love, and who loved her, had been close by to support and comfort her. As they had when her husband of a few hours had been struck down, an invalid to the end of his days; as they had when she had been turned overnight from a wife of sorts, to a nursemaid...

Now she had no one to turn to, no one to love her. She was utterly alone, amongst people who for the most part could not even speak her language, who wanted her money or her body, but cared nothing for the frightened girl inside; who seemed at times almost to hate her, if the light in the eyes of the tall Highlander was any guide. She did not know what kind of life she would have to lead at her journey’s end, but instinct told her it would be frighteningly alien to anything she knew. This little ship, bobbing on the black waves, was carrying her further and further into the unknown.

With relief she saw the dawn light creep into the sky. Nothing could seem quite so bad in daylight as it had in the grim moments before dawn. But it did not help a great deal. She felt numb now, as if everything she did, all that happened to her, was part of a dream, grey and unreal. She had almost come to believe that soon she would wake and find herself in her own dear room at home with the birds chorusing joyously in the garden beyond the window - when the cabin door was flung wide and two Highlanders came in and led her, one grasping each arm, into the daylight.

The shock of icy spray and sea wind flung in her face as she stepped onto the deck drove out any lingering doubt as to whether or not she was awake. But the scene before her stopped her in her tracks. Nothing had prepared her for this.

The waves stretched silver grey and dancing to a mountainous shore, the dark rugged peaks outlined against a morning sky streaked with palest green and amethyst and rose. And as she watched the sun slid with copper brilliance over the horizon and the landscape woke to life.

Thick woods covered the nearer slopes, blue-shadowed and gold-edged like the mountain peaks above - kindly mountains, softened by young bracken and the gentler line of the trees. Here and there a burn splashed white into the sea, and higher up the silver gleam of a waterfall shone through the branches. To their left - towards the west - a small loch broke into the shoreline, blue and calm under the morning sky, and straight ahead a solitary, single-towered castle perched arrogantly upon a headland, the waves tossing their spray upon the rocks at its feet.

A soft exclamation broke into her wondering trance. Isobel turned her head to see Hector near to her, gazing as intently as she had done at the shore. She saw, with astonishment, that his dark eyes were bright with tears. She knew, then, where they were.

He noticed her at last and came, laughing, and flung his arm about her waist, crying out joyously in his own language. His delight touched her, and she longed to understand him, but one glance at the hesitation in her eyes drove from him all trace of that moment of warmth. He drew away, and turned to the tall Highlander at his other side, and they were soon lost in excited talk, forgetting her.

The wonder of the sunrise had evaporated now, unrecoverable. The rowers, who had paused for a moment in acknowledgement of its splendour, bent again to their work, their voices raised more vigorously than ever in the rhythmic chanting song that lightened their task. Isobel stared at the swiftly-approaching land, and tried to find some clue as to what awaited her.

Ardshee: that, she supposed, must be the name of the castle and its land, for they were turning slightly east beneath it and making for a little bay, half hidden by the rocky headland. As they entered it, passing the castle to their left, the wind dropped suddenly, the waves were still, the chanting ceased, and a great quietness fell over the ship.

Around the bay, sheltering it, towered great rock-strewn cliffs, softened by trees growing even where the slope seemed almost vertical: oak, rowan, birch, clinging against all the odds to rock and grass, vibrantly golden-green in the early light, though the sun still scarcely reached the mouth of the bay. As the ship moved into the shadow the echoing chorus of a thousand bird voices reached them, as if struck up in welcome.

A cry from the land disturbed the tranquillity, and Isobel’s gaze moved to the narrow shingle beach that fringed the bay at the foot of the trees. There, where the shoreline widened out at the innermost corner of the bay, half a dozen or so thatched stone huts huddled as if for shelter. And from them men were running, gathering on the beach, their excited shouting echoing against the cliff walls.

Close to the shore the ship grounded gently, its single square sail furled, its oars drawn into the side, the rowers scrambling to their feet and stretching cramped limbs. Isobel wondered how they were to reach the land, for there were still several yards of cold dancing water between ship and shore.

Then came a sudden dramatic pause. She saw the rowers turn their heads towards the prow, saw Hector step forward to the side of the ship, the tall Highlander a pace or two behind him. And a small stately clansman took up his position close to his chieftain, hoisted bagpipes to his mouth, and began to play.