Lord of the Highlands (39 page)

The hillock at her side dropped away, revealing the far edge of the beach. Revealing Cormac.

His shirtless back was to her, his
breacan feile
slapping at his legs in the wind. He was hauling in his nets. A fisherman now, as his sister had said. Hand over hand, the flex of muscle in his arms and back was visible even from a distance.

Gasping, Marjorie stumbled back a step, leaning into the rocks for support. She’d told herself she came because he could help her. But she knew in that instant the real reason she’d come: The only place for her in this treacherous world stood just there, down the beach.
Cormac.

She’d willingly suffer his blame, suffer his indifference; yet still, like the embers from a long-banked fire, she knew Cormac would give her solace, despite himself.

She hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, but he turned, as though he’d felt her there. Her hand went to her chest, reminding her heart to beat, her lungs to draw breath.

He turned again, abruptly, and tears stung her eyes. Would he spurn her?

But she saw he merely bent to gather his nets, dragging them farther up the shore where he carefully spread them out.

Relief flooded her. She scrubbed at her face, gathering herself, and tucked errant wisps of hair behind her ears. She knew it was purely a nervous gesture; the strong sea wind would only whip her curls free again.

She tempered herself. This meeting would not go well if she were this vulnerable from the start. But of course she was this vulnerable, she thought with a heavy heart, considering all that had recently come to pass.

She took a deep breath. He’d seen her. She couldn’t go back now.

Marjorie picked her way toward him. He stood still as granite, waiting for her, watching her. His dark hair blew in the wind, and his brow was furrowed. Was he upset to see her? Simply thoughtful?

Suddenly, she regretted the absence of her slippers. She loved the sensation of the smooth rocks beneath her feet, but now felt somehow naked without every stitch of her clothing. She fisted her hands in her skirts. She imagined she’d always been sort of naked before Cormac, and there was nothing that could truly ever conceal her. He was the only one who’d ever been able to read her soul, laid bare in her eyes.

He was silent and still. What would he see in her eyes now?

She felt as though she’d forgotten how to walk. She made herself stand tall, focused on placing one foot in front of the other, but she felt awkward and ungainly, unbearably self-aware as she made her way to him.
Lift the foot, place it down, lift and down.

Her brain spun with frantic thoughts. Who would be first to speak? She’d sought
him
out; the initial greeting would fall to her. It would fall to the woman, to
her
, to chatter with ease. She could ask after his family. Would inquire as to the day’s catch.

He was not ten paces away. He was tall, but with a man’s body now, broad with muscles carved from hauling nets, from firing guns. That last gave her pause. She spotted the fine sheen of scars on his forearm, a sliver of a scar on his brow. He’d been long at war. What kind of a man would he have become?

Inhaling deeply, she let her eyes linger over his face. She was close enough to see the color of his eyes. Blue-gray, like the sea. Her heart sped. She forced herself to step closer.

She’d been unable to summon an exact picture of him in her thoughts, but now that he stood before her, his face was as familiar to her as her own. There was Cormac’s strong, square jaw. The long fringe of dark lashes. But he was somehow foreign, too. The boy had become a man. A vague crook had appeared in his nose, and she wondered what long-ago break had put it there. Where had
she
been the moment it happened, what had
she
been doing while he’d been living his life?

She stopped an arm’s length from him. Intensity radiated from him like the sun’s glare off the sea.

Her throat clenched. She couldn’t do it. What had she been thinking?

He blamed her still. He didn’t want to speak to her. He didn’t welcome the sight of her.

The silence was shrill between them. She swallowed hard, wondering how best to get herself out of there. How to gracefully back out, to never,
ever
see him again.

For Davie.
She had to do this for Davie. That thought alone kept her anchored in place.

Cormac opened his mouth to speak, and she held her breath.

“Ree,” he whispered, in the voice of a man. “Aw, Ree, lass.”

Her every muscle slackened. Her fear, her disquiet, stripped away, leaving Marjorie raw before him. Hot tears came quick, blurring her vision.

“Cormac,” she gasped. “It’s happened again.”

Cormac heard the hollow clack of rocks shifting behind him. Years of savage training had attuned his senses, sensitized them, rendering him as acute as any predator. The merest rustle could sound at his back, and pure instinct flared, making him ready to fight, or to kill.

He’d spun, but it was her.
Marjorie.
The sight of her was a punch in the sternum.

She was his guilty pleasure. Through the years, he’d hold himself off, until he could bear it no longer, then he’d allow himself to ask after her, or more delicious still, find an excuse to travel to Aberdeen and the promise of a chance glimpse or two. To his family he feigned casual disinterest, but Cormac felt certain the world saw through his mask to the anguish beneath.

He should’ve saved Aidan that day. If he’d been stronger, less clumsy and inept, he could’ve fought to save him. But like a fool he’d gotten himself stuck in a damned chimney flue. He’d borne the shame of it every day since. His stupidity had lost him his twin, and his grieving mother hadn’t survived the year. Two losses on his head, all before his ninth birthday.

The third loss, though, the crushing blow, was the loss of this woman who approached him now. This fine and beautiful creature whom he’d never deserve.

He suspected Marjorie saw more in him than his shame, but he could not. He was beyond feeling love, or joy, and he’d sealed that fate when he’d gone off to war, craving battles like a parched man does water, baptizing himself in blood. But rather than washing his soul clean, the blood of others had only stained it blacker.

Marjorie grew closer, gliding across the rocky beach as though it were a ballroom. She held her head high, and her long golden brown curls whipped in the wind. The ache in his chest turned sharp, from the punch of a fist to the twist of a knife.

Rarely did he truly
see
anyone anymore. All faces looked the same to Cormac. All, except for hers. She emerged from the world’s meaningless bustle as a goddess would a frieze.

Marjorie was close enough now that he could see her eyes. He’d been seeing them in his dreams for years. He’d convinced himself it was merely a last remaining boyish fancy that had embellished his memories, but he knew now he’d been wrong. Her eyes were as brilliant as he’d remembered. They were wide, a rare blue that had always reminded him of the petals of
barraisd
. Her eyes, like the flower, were impossibly vivid and bright.

“Ree,” he heard himself whisper. And with that, a veil cleared from before those startling eyes. He saw her pain, and it sliced through his armor as easily as a blade between ribs. “Aw, Ree, lass.”

“Cormac, it’s happened again.”

He understood at once, and fought the urge to reach for her. “Tell me.”

“I live with Uncle now, in the old town house.” She paused, the memory of that house and that day hanging between them. “I’ve been helping tend the children at the Saint Machar poorhouse.”

He nodded, even though he already knew where she lived and how she’d been spending her time. She’d been battling her own demons, just as he had.

He wanted to give her some reassurance, but instead felt his eyes narrow. He cursed himself. Perhaps he’d never remember how regular folk acted, how they comforted, how they smiled.

“I was with Davie—” Her voice caught.

Jealousy spiked his veins like acid. Had Marjorie come to him to discuss another man? Rage overcame him, then disbelief. He waited for Marjorie’s explanation in pained silence.

“I was with a boy named Davie,” she began again, “down by the docks. He’s a wee lad, just five, and clings to my skirts like a limpet, he does.”

Cormac’s chest eased, and he realized he’d been holding his breath.

Marjorie peered at him for a moment, a curious look in her eyes. “I had business in Castlegate,” she continued, “and so gave him a bawbee for some food. The baker had a pan of rowies hot from the oven . . .” Her voice drifted off.

Dread lanced him, and for a moment, Cormac knew what it was to be a feeling man again, instead of the brittle husk he’d become. He hardened his stance. “And?” His voice came out harsher than he’d intended, his battle to remain remote making his voice sound a snarl.

Marjorie looked down. “And he never came back to me,” she finished quietly.

He forced a casual shrug. “Maybe he ran off. He’s just a boy after all.” But even as he said it, Cormac knew. No boy in their right mind would tear themselves from the skirts of the fine Marjorie Keith.

“No,” she said simply. She collected herself, inhaling deeply. “I know him. He’d not run off. And . . . there have been rumors . . .”

Cormac regretted it, but there was nothing for it. Marjorie deserved to hear the truth. “Not rumors, Ree. Fact. Parliament decreed long ago that able-bodied poor found idling be gathered and claimed as property.”

“Like Aidan?” Her voice was barely a murmur.

He set his jaw. “Aye. Precisely like that.”

She wiped a tear from her cheek, and Cormac fisted his hands at his sides. He would not—
could
not—comfort her. “ ’Tis a cruel world, Ree. There are even some who say the poor lads are the better for it, breathing the fresh air of the Indies, or the Americas, rather than—”

“Rather than climbing chimneys?” she asked coldly, putting a fine point on both their pain. At his nod, she blanched, and then darted her eyes down to stare at her foot as she toed a rock. “It’s horrible. How can men do that, and to children?”

“Aye, man is horrible.” He’d seen it firsthand.
He’d
done horrible things.

As if she’d read his thoughts, she reached for him. The touch of Marjorie’s hand on his arm was light, but it was as though lightning cracked, splitting his heart wide open. Her touch shattered him, exposing the pale, bleak creature hidden at his core.

In that instant, he was vulnerable. Alone, and aching with yearning.

He looked at her fingers wrapped around his forearm, and a lifetime of want burst to the fore. His eyes rose to find her gaze on him. He’d loved her so. The sight of her reminded him of all he’d lost. Of all he was missing.

Cormac stiffened. He let his mind rove to a dangerous place. One where he eased Marjorie down to take her along the rocks, running his hands over her body, through her hair. She’d let him; he saw it in her eyes. He could bury himself in her, forget it all. She’d absolve him of his pain.

His eyes clenched shut as he let that pain roil through him. He couldn’t touch her. He wasn’t the man she needed. He could never be good enough for one like Ree.

Cormac turned to heave a basket of fish higher up the shore. “Forget the boy, Marjorie.”

He set his haul down with force, his eyes shut in a grimace. He’d never used such a tone with her. Hadn’t called her by her full name in he knew not how long. But he couldn’t help that the world was a cruel place.

“Marjorie!” his youngest sister shouted from up the beach.

Cormac busied himself with his nets. He heard a rustling as Bridget enthusiastically embraced her.

“Marjorie,” Bridget exclaimed, breathless. “Where have you been hiding yourself? Cormac was asking after you just the other day.”

He scowled, untangling and smoothing the twine webbing, even though the nets were already in impeccable shape. If he could, he’d tan his sister’s meddlesome hide.

Bridget trilled merrily on. Cormac could hear from the laughter in her voice that she knew she’d gotten under his skin. “Truly, Marjorie, it distresses me what a stranger you’ve become. You’ll stay for a time with us, of course.”

Cormac winced. “She’ll not want to bed down in our pile of rubble,” he said, not looking up from his work.

“Cormac MacAlpin!” Bridget leaned down to swat his shoulder. “It’s not so grim as all that. Come”—she linked arms with Marjorie—“and be welcome at Dunnottar Castle.”

He rose slowly, meeting Marjorie’s gaze. They locked eyes and, for a blessed instant, the rest of the world fell away. He lost himself, the past, his pain, drowned in vivid blue.

She blinked, and something shifted in her gaze. Cormac swore he felt it shimmer like electricity across his skin. Marjorie narrowed her eyes, assuming a look,
her
look, the one she used to get before issuing one of her infamous dares. That glint aimed straight for him, and Cormac braced.

Marjorie patted his sister’s hand, her gaze never leaving his. “Thank you, Bridget. I look forward to my stay.”