Chapter
30
F
iona stared through the porthole at the four men who had launched out across the waves in a lobster boat. She couldn’t believe it. The chieftain himself sat at the prow. Plying the oars with an effortless strength, he propelled the craft forward until she could barely see it against the horizon.
“It’s the MacElgin, Dad,” she said in astonishment. “Do you think he’s heard about Jamie going after Marsali?”
Colum did not acknowledge the question. Hunched over a three-legged black cauldron in the corner of the cabin, he was lost in concentration. A tiny wooden boat that held four wax figures floated on the surface of the sea water he’d collected in the iron basin.
With painstaking care, he dropped the first of three pebbles into the water. Gently he blew against the boat, repeating a Celtic incantation.
“That looks like fun,” Fiona said in his ear as she plopped down beside him. “What are you doing?”
He jumped in startlement. The pebbles in his hand hit the water with a loud splash. The tiny boat bobbed wildly in the ripples that washed across the cauldron. The four wax figures toppled against one another.
“By all the Gods in Gaeldom!” Colum shouted in exasperation. “Can’t you see when I am working, Fiona? You’ve probably drowned the fools with your ill-timed interference.”
“The fools—you mean, the chieftain and his clansmen?” She threw her thin arms around him in relief. “Oh, Dad. You
are
going to help Marsali. I knew you would.”
He frowned in irritation. “Go outside and practice talking to trees, Fiona. Polish the silver pentacle. Find some pretty stones for your amulet collection. Project yourself into the Otherworld.”
“But Dad—”
“Go now, Fiona. I haven’t a moment to waste. If Jamie MacFay reaches the convent before the chieftain, there is no spell on earth that can save your cousin. She will end up marrying the simpleton, and he will get them both killed in some pointless rebellion.”
The note of panic in his voice mobilized her. “Poor Marsali,” she said, her face pale with distress as she rose to her feet.
Colum vented a sigh, reaching into the cauldron to steady the tiny boat. “Take Eun with you. Release him on the cliff.”
“All right, Dad. No sacrifice is too great to help Marsali.”
She crept past him to unhook the hawk preening his feathers on his driftwood perch. She didn’t utter another word. Not even when Eun hopped onto her head and dug his taloned feet into her ears. Tears filled her eyes as she contemplated Marsali’s fate. Imprisoned in a convent, unaware that Jamie MacFay, the pig, was on his way to abduct her. Why did her cousin always have all the excitement?
She stifled a sob. She brushed a tear from her nose. She was so upset she forgot about her father crouched on the floor. She even forgot about his Celtic cauldron until she tripped over it and sent its contents sloshing everywhere.
D
uncan dropped the oars and grabbed Owen by the ankles as another wave slammed against the sidewale. The storm had erupted without warning as if stirred up by a mischievous sea deity. The lobster boat spun like a top and nosed into a trough.
Johnnie slammed into Lachlan, who slammed into Duncan, who clung to Owen’s ankles as the craft threatened to capsize. It took all of Duncan’s strength to fight the vortex twirling them in circles.
Strangely, the sun continued to shine through the deluge of heavy rain and unbridled waves. Duncan had never seen anything like it in his life. He could swear they were caught in the eye of a storm that hadn’t struck anywhere else in the sea. Their own exclusive summer tempest.
“We’re going to drown,” Owen wailed to no one in particular as an oar sailed over his head into the turbulent waters.
A monstrous wave rose overhead and hit the boat like a block of green ice. A claw of salty water slapped Duncan in the face. Lachlan screamed and threw his arms around Duncan’s neck, clinging like a limpet. Duncan fell on his face; his body ached with the shock of cold and the strain of holding on to Owen’s ankles. In his profession he had always accepted the possibility of an early death. A violent death.
But not this. Not drowning in a lobster boat with one idiot choking him like an iron collar and another pulling his arm out of its socket. It reeked of indignity. It wasn’t fair.
“God,” he said into the roaring wind, “I always suspected You had a sense of humor. But don’t let me die before I get Marsali to safety.”
Then, just as mysteriously as it had erupted, the storm came to an end. The towering waves receded into playful whitecaps. The wind subsided to a sweet breeze. The boat righted itself like a leaf steadied by an invisible hand. Lachlan released his terrified stranglehold on Duncan’s throat. Owen scrambled back over the thwarts.
“Thank God,” Duncan said in a hoarse voice, pushing his wet tangled hair from his face.
He gazed across the water. The storm had blown them far enough along so that by now he should have been able to see the Island of Inverothes. Yet all he could make out was a mysterious body of mist rising from the sea where the convent should have been. Not a tree. Not a rock. Not a cliff.
Johnnie was bailing water from the boat with a rusty
bucket. “Well, my lord?” he asked anxiously. “What do we do now?”
Duncan rubbed his face as he stared in helpless silence at the nebulous shape on the sea. Was that the belltower rising from the mist, or an illusion of his own desperation? What the hell had happened to the island? They hadn’t been blown that far off course.
He had built his military career on taking chances. He had gambled the fate of great nations on his intuition. He had never cared so much about the outcome.
I wa
nt Marsali Hay. I’m takin' her t
oo, ye bloody bastard.
“Are ye all right, my lord?” Owen asked in concern.
Duncan raised his head as a dark graceful shape soared high above the misty contours, gliding on a thermal wind— a guidepost he could not misinterpret. “Eun,” he said with a grim smile of gratitude. “The hawk is showing us where she is.”
J
udith stared at her brother in consternation through the heavy iron bars of the convent gate. Duncan had appeared so unexpectedly, springing up
from the sea grasses and rock-
strewn shore that encircled the cloister that she had crossed herself in alarm. She had been tossing out crumbs for the gulls.
Moments passed before she recognized the fierce dark face. MacElgin, the warrior. The man revered in the world she disclaimed. He looked like a total barbarian, banging at the gate with his sword drawn and his long black hair in a tangle down his back.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, recovering her composure. “You’re soaking wet. Why are you brandishing that awful weapon?”
Duncan’s dark gaze scoured the arcaded cloisters behind her. “Has Jamie MacFay been here yet?”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” She glanced past him in chagrin to the three other Highlanders dragging a boat ashore. “Duncan, who are these scruffy men? How dare you disturb our peace in this uncouth manner?”
His face grim, he shoved his sword back in his scabbard. “I want Marsali back. Bring her to me, and I’ll be gone before anyone else sees me.”
“You may visit at the end of the month for an hour with the other families,” she said crisply. “Please leave before you upset the others. We have received a special dispensation for an Irish abbess and three lay sisters to join our order. I would not have them arrive to the sight of a man banging uncouthly at the gates with a sword.”
Duncan gripped the bars, his voice husky with frustration. “I don’t think you understand me. Jamie MacFay is on his way here to get Marsali. I’m taking her away before he hurts her or anyone else.”
She leveled her unperturbed gaze on his. “I don’t think
you
understand. I gave my word that Marsali would be protected until a husband is found for her, and I do not go back on my word. She is not leaving this cloister until then if it is in my power to prevent it.”
Duncan curbed the impulse to grab her through the gate and steal her keys. “Listen to me. Jamie MacFay and his men don’t give a damn about religious sentiment—”
“I’ve turned away ardent suitors before, and please watch your language. God will protect us.”
“This is a personal attack on me, Judith. His men are liable to trample your nuns down like snowdrops. Where is Marsali?”
“Banished to the washroom until after breakfast as penance for breaking the convent bell, the convent loom, and for leaving a puddle of water on the cellar steps again, which nearly caused me to break my neck.”
Duncan beat down the beginnings of a black panic. If he didn’t whisk Marsali out of here in the next half hour, they’d end up sailing home in a dark misty sea in a battered lobster boat. If they waited until morning, they would undoubtedly run into Jamie, and blood would be shed on these quiet grounds. Blood that would be blamed on him, and rightly so.
The bell for complines rang to interrupt his thoughts. White-veiled nuns abandoned chores to scurry to chapel, drifting like wraiths through the convent’s colonnades.
“Please,” he said. “Unlock the gate and let me in. I’ll take her while everyone is at prayer. I’ll pay for whatever she broke. I’ll build a new belltower, Judith. I swear to you, I will not defile the purity of your convent. I will not bring a
weapon inside. Not a single drop of blood will be shed by my hand. On your mother’s grave, I swear it. On my daughter’s soul—”
Her startled look stopped him. “Daughter? What daughter is this?”
“I’ll explain it later. Please. I’m giving you my word.”
“And I’ve already given mine.” Judith turned away in a graceful swirl of her long skirts, her face set and serene. “Now do not make me late for chapel, Duncan. Marsali is staying under my protection.”
“
H
ell.”
Duncan paced the outcrop of rocks, waves breaking against his booted feet. Only honor kept him from breaking his vow and behaving like one of the Viking invaders who had conquered this tiny island centuries ago. The nuns would faint dead away if he went tramping through the cloister looking for Marsali. Damn it, why did his sister have to be so much like him? Stubborn, iron-willed, determined to have her own way.
“Why don’t you scale the wall and carry Marsali off?” Owen suggested, flung out flat on his back from exhaustion in the anchored lobster boat.
“Because I gave my word that I would not disrupt the convent.”
“I canna see the problem.” Lachlan clambered up on a rock to escape a wave. “All ye have to do is break yer word, my lord. No one will die.”
“It’s not as if anyone would be surprised,” Johnnie added from the rock where he sat fiddling with his spyglass.
“Aye, my lord,” Owen said in agreement. “Everyone knows ye’re a bastard.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” Duncan said dryly. He cast a morose glance up at the convent, or what he could see of it in the mist. “Is there any sign of Jamie’s ship yet?” he demanded, turning back to Johnnie.
“No. No sign, my lord.”
Lachlan teased a crab with his toe.
Owen began to whistle.
Duncan blew out a sigh of frustration.
Owen interrupted his whistling long enough to indulge a
moment of passing curiosity. “Why do ye care if ye displease yer sister anyway? Forgivin’ ye will only give her something else to pray about. ’Tis sinners like us that keep them busy.”
Duncan didn’t answer. How could he expect anyone to understand? Judith was the only person in the world who had witnessed him commit murder. How would he ever convince not just her, but himself, that violence was not the primary motivation of his soul?
All ye have to do is break yer word.
It’s not as if anyone would be surprised.
He unbuckled his sword and let his belt and weapon fall to the wet sand beneath his feet. There had to be a way to get Marsali back without resorting to force. Damn it, he would not confirm his sister’s worst convictions by another act of violence.
But violence is all you know,
an inner voice mockingly reminded him.
Without your physical power, you are nothing.
He stared at the locked gates, frustration slowly giving way to resolve. It was time to wage the ultimate battle from the bedrock of his being, to confront the black demon that had overshadowed him his entire life. It was time to challenge his own deepest beliefs about himself.
C
h
apter
31
T
oday was laundry day in the cloister.
Every convent inmate owned only two changes of clothing. One of these was worn an entire month before it could be washed and replaced with its alternate. As penance for breaking the loom, Marsali faced the arduous task of washing and hanging out a mountain of veils, habits, and stockings in the garden.
Laundry day.
She sighed. The unpleasant chore reminded her poignantly of the morning she had ambushed and undressed Duncan on the moor. She had believed in him from the moment he’d flattened his seven attackers and commanded the clan’s attention. She had lost her heart over a laundry trough.
And I still believe in him, she thought sadly, dragging her heavy wicker basket to the wall. She believed in him even if he had abandoned her out of some misguided impulse for good.
“The laundry will never dry if you leave it sitting there all day,” Sister Anne scolded from her bench, where she sat overseeing Marsali’s efforts. “Why do you keep looking over that wall anyway?”
Marsali sighed again. “I like to look at the sea.”
“Well, I dinna ken how ye can see even two feet in front of yer face.” The elderly nun crossed herself, huddling into her mantle. “I’ve no seen such a mist in my life.
’
Tis only by God’s grace that the good sisters from the Irish abbey willna run aground in their wee boat.” She paused to fix a suspicious look on Marsali. “If they make it here at all. ’Tisna natural, this mist, is it?”
“Um, no, Sister Anne.” Guiltily lowering her gaze, Marsali turned back to the tedious ritual of hanging up laundry. Rankly, she was good at casting mist, but she hadn’t quite figured out how to make it go away yet.
The heavy black habit she had just slung over the clothesline slowly plopped to the ground. She bent; the whiff of lye soap and wet wool so reminded her of Duncan’s cloak that an aching lump rose in her throat.
As she straightened, she felt a tingle of excitement in her spine. It was strange. Suddenly she could sense his presence, the power of him, as if he were standing right in front of her. Perhaps her magic was working, after all.
She backed away from the clothesline in confusion, clutching the damp wool to her chest. A delicious tension gripped her, as if Duncan’s dark gaze had actually reached out across the miles.
Sister Anne looked up, alarmed by the girl’s strange behavior. She had been instructed by the Mother Superior to guard Marsali, but against what had never been made clear. “What is it?” she whispered, rising from the bench.
“It’s
…
I’m
…
” Marsali frowned. How could she explain to someone like Sister Anne that the smell of wet wool made her imagine the chieftain’s presence? “I think I’m having a vision.”
Sister Anne stared at the veils hanging on the clothesline, her voice dropping in wonder. “A vision of Our Lady?”
“Not exactly, Sister Anne.” Marsali hid a little smile and resumed her work, trying to ignore the pleasantly disturbing feeling that persisted.
S
he was so close that Duncan, on the other side of the wall, could barely restrain the urge to shout her name. He controlled the impulse out of concern that the frail old nun
guarding Marsali would take a heart attack. It was a delicate dilemma.
“I’m hungry, my lord,” Lachlan whispered loudly. “Can we climb over the wall yet?”
Duncan ignored him. All he could see through the chink in the crumbling stones were Marsali’s small feet marching back and forth to the basket—and the fact that she kept dropping clean laundry in the dirt.
He heard her swear under her breath too, and the sound was music to his ears. Obviously an atmosphere of prayer and solitude hadn’t penetrated deeply enough to damage her true nature.
He was starved for a glimpse of her. If it wouldn’t scare that old nun to death, he’d scale the wall like a Viking warlord and carry off the hellion.
“I’m finished, Sister Anne,” Marsali announced wearily, reaching down for the basket.
Duncan pressed his face to the wall. Anticipation quickened his pulse. If the chink were a little bigger, he could reach his hand through the mortar and grasp her hand. Of course she’d probably scream bloody murder if he did. But he needed to touch her.
The bells for vespers began to ring.
“Hurry. Hurry,” Sister Anne urged, nudging Marsali onto the path. “The entire convent will be beseeching God with prayers that the abbess and her companions willna drown in this mist.” She stopped to shake her head, her figure obscuring Duncan’s view. “ ’Tis verra strange, unnatural, this mist. I dinna like it one bit.”
T
he three clansmen crouched behind the jagged rocks, anxiously awaiting their chieftain’s return. They were silent, except for the loud rumbling of Lachlan’s stomach, and Owen biting his nails. Duncan had only been gone on his mysterious mission for about fifteen minutes, but to the nervous trio, it felt like an hour.
“I canna stand the suspense,” Johnnie said at last. “What could have happened to him in there?”
Lachlan grunted. “Nothing too excitin’. Tis a nunnery, after all.”
A broad shadow on top of the convent wall caught their
attention. They fell silent as Duncan dropped a heavy object between the rocks.
“All right, men, to the gatehouse. I have a plan for us to get Marsali without causing a commotion.”
“
’
Tis a laundry basket,” Owen said, peering down at the rocks in disappointment. “What are we supposed to do with a load of women’s clothes?”
“
W
hich one of you idiots took my other stocking?” Duncan worked his thickly muscled left leg down into the cumbersome woolen skirts that hung about his feet. The sound of fabric rending followed. It was as dark as a grave in the small gatehouse above the convent gate, where the four men hid with their basket of stolen habits.
A damp stocking hit Duncan in the head. He grabbed it, but he couldn’t fit the hose on farther than his shin. A telltale expanse of bulging calf protruded above the soggy wool.
“How did you manage to put your veil on, my lord?” Lachlan whispered in between the sound of Duncan cursing about his stockings and Johnnie complaining that his petticoats were going to give him a rash.
“You have to pin the blasted thing on.”
“What about these strings that are hangin’ down from it?”
“I haven’t figured out what to do with them yet.” A white linen wimple framed Duncan’s scowling face. “I’ll help you as soon as I finish getting Owen’s habit on over his paunch.”
“It’s Johnnie’s paunch, my lord,” Johnnie informed him. “Owen is sulking in the corner because ye gave him the veil that Marsali dropped in the mud. By the way, ye’ve put these sleeves on upside down.”
“Well, I’m not a damned lady’s maid, am I? Owen, get over here. Give me the pins.”
“Ouch, my lord! That’s my delicate flesh ye’re stabbin.
Ouch!
”
Duncan whirled around, muttering to himself as his feet became tangled in the unaccustomed layers of heavy material. “Let me unshutter this window so I can see what the hell I’m doing. It’s a damn good thing I shaved this morning.” He gave the warped shutter a fierce tug, and it popped
open, dust motes dancing in the diffused gray light that filtered across his face. The three other men recoiled from him in mute horror.
“What is it?” Duncan snapped. He straightened, flicking back the drawstrings dangling around his chin. A shadowy white veil fluttered downward to accentuate the rugged angles of his jaw. “Well, what are you staring at? Do I have my wimple on backward?”
Johnnie recovered first, studying Duncan with a pained grimace. “It might be better if it were on backward, my lord. I dinna mean any disrespect, but ye’re the ugliest woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Aye,” Owen agreed, swallowing in distaste. “The ugliest, and the biggest too.”
T
he gray light of gloaming had fallen by the time they managed to get dressed, and Duncan, who’d gotten a horrifying glimpse of himself in the window, thought that the darkest night couldn’t hold enough shadows to disguise them. They were as homely as hell.
God, however, must have seen humor in the situation and decided to give him a hand.
Duncan had wandered off on a reconnaissance mission toward the kitchen quarters in search of Marsali. As he skulked about the back door, he was caught by a tiny energetic nun who almost dropped her ladle at the sight of him.
“Glory be to God!” she exclaimed, her ruddy cheeks like polished apples. “The Irish sisters are here, and this must be the abbess herself come to humble her soul by helping with supper.” Beaming with delight, she dragged him into the hot cramped kitchen to introduce him to the two other nuns busy ladling soup into earthen bowls.
Now, in the refectory itself where meals were served, the nuns were not permitted to speak unless to utter a prayer or to read Scripture. But here in the kitchen, Sister Bridget and her helpers followed no s
uch restriction. They chattered
excitedly about how their prayers had been answered: that the Irish sisters had not gotten lost in this unusual mist, and how fortunate that the abbess herself had arrived to hear the devotional during supper.
And all Duncan could think as he listened in cynical silence to the happy chatter was how fortunate it was that the convent couldn’t afford to bu
rn
many candles, and that no one had gotten a good look at his face yet because he suspected he was sprouting beard hairs by the second. God willing no one would look down at his legs.
“Here, let me help you carry that porringer, Sister Bridget,” he said, hoping a falsetto Irish lilt would detract from the deep baritone of his normal voice. “You should be letting the schoolgirls do the heavy work.” He moved around the table, grateful his veil fell forward to overshadow his jaw. “And where would the young misses be off to anyway? Employe
d in some beneficial pursuits, I
pray?”
A smile brightened Sister Bridget’s heavily lined face. “Why, of course. Reverend Mother Abbess. They’re setting the table for supper and cleaning up the chapel. We had a wee accident there today, but the perpetrator is paying her penance—”
She broke off with a gasp of alarm as Duncan reached across the table to lift the heavy platter a nun had just removed from the oven. Duncan hesitated at her look of horror. Had she noticed his hairy forearms? His stubbled chin?
Or had she, like him, just noticed the poignant face that had appeared in the window, shock registering on its perfect little features?
Marsali. He grinned slowly, resisting the impulse to run outside as everything else around him faded to insignificance. She was safe, his naughty fairy. He’d found her, and he was never going to let her out of his sight again.
“No, Reverend Mother Abbess!” he heard Sister Bridget cry in warning, but her concerned voice barely dented his dazed relief at seeing Marsali. Finally, realizing he wasn’t paying attention, the nun gave him a sharp whack on the back and shouted in his ear like a drill sergeant, “ARE YE DEAF? DINNA TOUCH THAT PLATTER!”
It was too late. He had already grasped the red-hot pewter handles in his bare hands. In fact, it took several moments before the searing pain reached his nerve endings, and then he threw the platter of baked fish on the floor; a curse rolled off his tongue before he could stop it.
“Hellfire and damnation!”
Sister Bridget dropped her ladle, whispering, “Reverend Mother!” in a shocked voice. “How could—”
“Hellfire and damnation is the price one pays for impulsive behavior and false pride,” Duncan amended through gritted teeth, bending to retrieve the platter while a delayed reaction of burning pain sizzled up his palm into his fingertips. “I was so anxious to prove my humility that I foolishly ignored your warning. Scourge me with a whip, Sister, for my wicked conceit.”
“Ah.” The nun gave him a doubtful look, her face puckered in an effort to understand. “Well, very good, Reverend Mother. A little strongly put, but quite profound. False pride is a frequent sin among the sisters. However—” A muffled snort of laughter drew her attention to the window where Marsali watched, her hand pressed to her mouth to muffle her irrepressible snorts of amusement.
Sister Bridget wagged an admonishing finger at the window. “Ye’ll not be laughing so hard when ye have to pay another penance for laughing at the Reverend Mother’s accident, Marsali Hay. Get ye to the refectory this instant, and dinna give me cause to scold ye again tonight.” She turned apologetically to Duncan. “A new student, Reverend Mother, brimming over with human nature and all the willfulness in the world. She’s the challenge of the convent.”
“Perhaps I could have a word alone with the wee spitfire,” Duncan suggested in a casual tone. “I might pray with the lass later tonight in private, offer her a few words of guidance.”
Nodding gratefully as another nun handed her a clean ladle, Sister Bridget replied, “That’s awfully good of ye. I’m sure Mother Judith would appreciate yer intervention, especially since she herself is spending the evening in the infirmary nursing several of the sisters who’ve come down with coughs. It’s this mist, ye ken. I’ve never seen the likes of it. Thank God ye didna drown on your way here.” Humming a hymn under her breath, Sister Bridget returned to the task of ladling cabbage broth into bowls. Duncan bowed his head as he sailed past the three nuns to the door with his two platters of baked fish.