Page 42 of Rebellion's Fire

He nodded. “To me. To all of us.”

She swallowed, blinking rapidly. “I suppose she has a healing touch, your Lady of Tirebeck.”

Adam took that as permission. He was glad of it, although he’d have gone anyway. He lifted her hand, brushed it against his cheek as he had when he was a child. “Thank you,” he said and left her.

*

Although it wasalmost pitch-black when they sailed past the Cromarty Firth, with a tiny moon and only a few stars visible behind the clouds and rain, Adam imagined he could see down the coastline as far as the Tirebeck inlet. He painted the new tower against the blackness for himself, all the time knowing that even in daylight he wouldn’t see them. He doubted they could have seen him either from the castle tower, but taking no chances, he’d doused the lights on his ship—the same galley the men had carried overland from Tirebeck when he’d first come home. He used the darkness to sail by, unseen, to meet the rest of his force on the other side of the Black Isle.

Not that any warning from Tirebeck would have reached his targets before he did. But he thought the mystery and speed of MacHeth raids helped their legend and their cause, just like their use of the prophetic name of Aed. No one expected a sea attack on the east, certainly not while Somerled was in the west, subduing Man. The King of the Isles wouldn’t let any of his fleet move so far from his main objective, although he might be willing enough to harry the west coast when he could spare the time and the men.

Adam turned his face away from the coast, as if by doing so he could stop himself from thinking abouther. He wanted to. But staring into the rippling blackness of the sea below, he saw her still, illuminated by the soft glow from a lamp or stars. This was how he wanted her, of course, naked and loving, her black hair, which he’d never seen in reality, tumbling loose around her pale, delicate shoulders. He couldn’t bear the intensity of emotion battering him.

A sound of distress jerked him back to reality. A hand—Findlaech’s—on his shoulder reminded him that the noise was his, and he bit down on it as the darkness of night at sea and the rhythm of the oars filled his senses once more.

His hand was clenched on the side of the ship. Another vision, surely born of desire rather than prophecy. Only…why should he dream so much of her when all logic dictated that because of who she was, she should belong to Donald? Donald, his brother in blood and birth and friendship, probably the being closest to him in the world. Especially when taken with the much more certain foreknowledge that he, Adam, would kill Lanson. He couldn’t recall any other dream ever conflicting so entirely with common sense that ithurt.

Findlaech’s casual hand fell away, and a fine spray from the oars moistened Adam’s face. The delightful fantasy he had indulged in his mind after taking Cairistiona and restoring her to Tirebeck had turned into a clawing in his gut.

Adam was no stranger to desire. But he’d never known it to be so married with care and anxiety. Or denial. He wasn’t used to denying himself. And whether or not he’dactuallyheld her in his arms and kissed her at Tirebeck, pressing her into the door like a plundering soldier in a hurry, the memory tore at him. Because he wished he had done it and much more besides, and he wished she didn’t hate him for it.

He wondered if Donald would hate him. Surely Donald, the older brother who’d taught and protected him in their early years and had always stood by him, would know that Adam would never betray him either?

It was just that wanting to interfered with his plans.

So, he’d concentrate on the immediate.

“Has anyone,” he asked, “ever been to Banff?”

*

When, on impulse,she invited Felicia and Cecily to accompany her to the shore after dark, they were clearly baffled. So was Christian. But they came anyway, following her across the sand and standing by her side as she gazed over the gently rippling sea as the breeze whipped at her veil.

Restlessness and something suspiciously like loneliness had consumed Christian each night since Adam MacHeth’s capture and escape. In the daytime, she was too busy to dwell on things she couldn’t change. But as darkness fell and she sat alone as she had chosen, she’d begun to wish for companionship—Eua’s, perhaps, or Loegaire, whom she scarcely knew. She might even have welcomed her women, whom she’d always more or less ignored because William had thrust them upon her and because they’d come at the same time as Alys.

Because of her husband’s relationship with Alys, she’d imagined they were all his mistresses, or had been at some point. Now, she doubted it. They were all just women of indeterminate origin and a smattering of education, to whom life had been unkind. They had no means of supporting themselves and so they were willing to serve Christian for her husband’s protection and their keep. Christian had been too concerned with her own unhappiness and her own plans to care for them as she should. And now she’d isolated them in Ross, where her husband was the enemy of everyone.

Maybe she should visit the bishop again, she mused. His wife was a kind woman of good family, who might agree to find decent husbands for her women…although Christian couldn’t really countenance them marrying priests! Maybe, just maybe, she should visit the Lady of Ross…

Christian had been ridiculed for failing to recognize her own captor when she’d been so close to him, but oddly enough, even William didn’t seem to think less of her for it. After all, he and Henry and several of the men had also been up close to him. It seemed to be an understandable mistake to ignore anyone who behaved like a mere servant—a lesson to them all.

The soft tumbling of the waves filled her ears. The women had stopped whispering and giggling. They almost provided the illusion of companions. Would she miss them if she married them off?

She smiled into the breeze as she imagined turning up with them at the Lady of Ross’s hall. She didn’t even know where that was. William had inquired, of course, but the only answer seemed to be that she moved around the province constantly, as did her sons. It was probably true, and yet Adam had said “Home” to her once, as if he understood the concept. Where was home to him?

She could almost imagine something moved out there in the gently rolling blackness. A fishing boat, perhaps. Or several. She could imagine women watching in the past, from the hill behind her, perhaps, as a fleet of Norse longships sailed by on its way to pillage along the coast. Until one day they’d discovered the enclosed bay and Tirebeck. Like most of the coastal communities, the people here were a mixture of Gael and Norse. As were the MacHeths themselves.

Is he alive or dead?

There was no one she could ask. In the absence of any obvious grief among the Ross people, she could only assume he still lived. So why did she still ache? She willed her pain into the imaginary fishing boats as they sailed on into the distance and only then recognized it as longing.

Chapter Twelve

Mairead, daughter ofDufoter and Lady of Kingowan, spent so much time riding across the country at breakneck speed that she found it almost restful to travel in a carriage. Her husband’s summons had reached her almost as soon as she’d returned from Roxburgh to her old home in Strathclyde to visit her aging parents.

Entertaining the king at her husband’s stone house at Kingowan in Angus was an honor she couldn’t and shouldn’t miss, and she was aware that her secret trip to Roxburgh had put her journey a couple of days behind schedule. The king was probably there already, but there were many excuses for delayed messages, especially with the MacHeths active, and Mairead foresaw no real trouble.

Although it was dark, she was almost there, on the familiar road, planning her greetings and apologies as well as suitable menus for the next few days, when the carriage suddenly veered, rocking wildly as it came to a shuddering halt amid the neighing of horses and shouting of men.

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