Shipwrecked (3 page)

“That bracelet was
all that I had left of my family,” she seethed, eyebrows now knit together in
anger, “And you lost it!” she said, voice wringing with anger.  She used her
hands to push off from his chest and tried to swim away.  The crest of a rather
large wave dumped on top of her and she sputtered, scrambling to regain control
of the situation and keep her head above water.

Rowan swam after
her fluidly, glancing over his shoulder at his brothers to make sure that they
were still safe.  He grabbed her about her middle and pulled her up close to
his body, fighting off her protests easily, being a more than competent
swimmer. 

“Stop fighting me
or ye’ll drown!” he yelled against the waves.  “I can tell that yer no a strong
swimmer, let me help ye,” he offered as she struggled, pushing against him.

“I’m fine, you
oaf!  Let me go!” she protested, kicking in an effort to free herself from his
embrace.

“I’m not going tae
let ye drown, sae ye might as well give up fightin’ I’m a fair bit stronger
than ye!”

“We’ll see about
that!” she challenged, using her arms to try to wriggle out of Rowan’s grasp.

“Alright, drown if
that’s what ye want.  I’m sorry about yer bracelet,” Rowan said sincerely as he
let her go.

“I’m still mad at
you for that,” she said, stopping and facing Rowan.  “You have no idea of how
much that bracelet meant to me,” she said, eyes welling up with tears.

“Mayhap I can make
it up tae ye?” Rowan offered tentatively, he hated it when a woman started to
cry.  “Why don’t ye come with me over tae where my brothers are?  Maybe we can
help ye.”

The girl started
at him, and he could see her defenses melting.  From the look on her face, he
knew that she was alone.

She pondered his
suggestion as if she had all the time in the world to make a decision.  A look
of surrender or possibly defeat spread across her face. “Alright, I’ll go with
you,” she said begrudgingly, not used to accepting help from other people. 
“Can you help me swim?” she gritted out between clenched teeth.

“Sure,” Rowan
said, offering his hand.  She placed her hand in his and he pulled her against
his chest.  She settled herself against him trustingly and allowed him to pull
her towards his brothers.  The seas had calmed significantly, and Rowan was
thankful that it was now easier to navigate the waves.  Rowan deftly swam up to
his brothers, still holding the lass tightly against his chest; he shifted his
arm so that it rested about her waist, still not trusting her ability to swim
by herself.

“Are ye alright,
Malcolm?” Rowan asked his little brother, worried by the look of panic that was
still fresh on the boy’s face.

“I’m fine, just wishin’
that we were on dry land,” Malcolm said, chuckling slightly as his head bobbed
above the waves.

“This is…” Rowan
trailed off as he tried to introduce the young lady to his brothers.  He
realized that he didn’t even know her name.

“Anna,” she
interjected, still holding on to Rowan’s arm for support in the waves.  “Anna
Stanton.”

“Nice tae meet ye,
Anna.  I’m Malcolm, and this is my brother Quinn,” Malcolm said, nodding
towards his oldest brother.  “He wanted tae go down with the ship, sae don’t
expect much conversation out of him.”

Anna’s eyes darted
between the brothers, a look of concern flashed across her face as she wondered
why Quinn would have wanted to go down with the ship.

“And who is he?”
Anna asked as she craned her neck towards her savior, her hand still wrapped
tightly around his biceps.

“Why that’s
Rowan,” explained Malcolm.  “Was he sae rude as no tae introduce himself?”

“I was busy trying
tae save her from drowning, there was no time for introductions,” Rowan said,
annoyance thick in his voice.

“Mam would be most
displeased with ye brother, I ken that she taught ye how tae behave around
womenfolk,” Malcolm chided, some of the fear dissipating from his green eyes.

“It’s quite
alright, Malcolm.  I can see that your brother needs to learn some manners.  He
already forced me to strip out of my dress.”

“He what?” 
Malcolm and Quinn asked in simultaneous disbelief, eyes focused now intently on
their brother.

“Well, I did have
her strip out of her dress, but only because she was drowning in it, she was
all tangled in the skirts, and I thought that she might be able tae swim better
without it…” Rowan trailed off, seeing that his reasoning was falling upon deaf
ears.

Malcolm shook his
head in dismay.  “Ye really asked her tae take off her dress?”

“Aye, I had to!”
Rowan exclaimed in defense.

“Anna, I’d like
tae apologize for my brother’s rudeness,” Quinn offered with a hint of a
smile.  “I’m sure that the stress of this adventure has caused him to lose all
rational thought.”

“It’s quite
alright, I mean, I
can
swim better without it,” Anna said, eyes darting
back towards Rowan.

“Still, it’s
absolutely deplorable that Rowan would disgrace ye in such a way, askin’ ye tae
take yer clothes off.  This being a life or death situation and all Rowan can
think of is how tae get ye out of yer gown!”  Malcolm exclaimed in mock
disbelief, eyes taunting his brother.

Anna looked over
her shoulder at Rowan, who shrugged in a gesture of innocence.  Surely he had
not just been thinking about how to get her out of her gown, and had been truly
seeking to help her chances of surviving this ordeal. 

Having grown up in
England, Anna had been taught to be wary of their Scottish neighbors to the
North.  She had heard of their brutal ways, their heathen nature, and it didn’t
help that English forces were at war with the Scots now, in the final stages of
quelling their uprising against the Crown.  Despite all of this, there was
something about these brothers, Rowan included, that caused Anna to trust them.

“I think that we
had better start moving towards the shore, ye can see it in the distance if ye
look,” Rowan said, seeking to change the subject and remove some of the heat
that his brothers had been placing on him. 

“Aye, the storm
has died down, we might be able tae make it before nightfall if the current is
strong,” Quinn surmised, hoping to use the swells from the last waves of the
storm to propel them towards the shore.

“If we make it
there, will we be free?”  Malcolm asked, raising a hand to his brow as he
looked towards the land far in the distance.

“Aye, this has
worked out better than we might have hoped,” Rowan said as he again pulled Anna
to his chest and began swimming towards the distant shoreline.

Anna’s heart sank
because she knew that freedom was not an option for herself, and her next
thought was about her safety.  She felt Rowan’s arm strong about her waist as
his powerful legs kicked them both towards the shore.  A feeling of dread
settled in her stomach.

Were these
Scotsmen dangerous prisoners?  What were they running from?

Chapter Three

The setting sun
loomed behind them as they finally reached the shore, casting hues or orange
and red into the evening sky.  Rowan set Anna on her feet and they trudged
exhausted onto the beach, his arm still around her waist, unsure if she would
be able to support herself after the long swim.

“We made it! 
We’re alive
and
we’re free!” Malcolm screamed at the top of his lungs as
he rolled in the sand.

Quinn crawled from
the water and sat in the sand, brushing his shoulder length chestnut hair back
from his face and resting his head wearily on his knees.  Rowan and Anna walked
slowly over next to him and sat down in the sand. 

“Do you think that
we are the only ones who survived?” Anna asked, wringing out her wet hair and
tying it in a knot at the nape of her neck.

“Surely not,”
replied Rowan as he squinted into the last light of the sun before it dropped
below the horizon, looking for movement in the sea.  “All good sailors ken how
tae swim.  Mayhap the current took them further down the beach.”

 Rowan glanced
over at Anna who sat rigid as a board staring blankly out at the ocean, feet
tucked demurely beneath the shredded fabric of her chemise. “Were you traveling
with someone?” Rowan ventured cautiously, suddenly feeling insensitive for
assuming that the lass had been traveling alone.  Mayhap she had lost someone
in the shipwreck and he had not even had the common decency to ask until now.

“No,” Anna whispered,
eyes still fixed on the now calm, rolling waves of the Atlantic. 

Rowan sat quietly,
expecting Anna to elaborate on her situation, but she did not offer any more
information.  She was perplexing indeed, so small and fragile, but with such an
air of confidence about her that Rowan knew there was more to Anna Stanton than
what met the eye.  His gaze flashed over her body which was thin and lithe, he
couldn’t help but notice how the thin fabric of her chemise clung to her full
breasts and flat stomach. 

“Do ye have any
idea of where we might be?”  Quinn broke the silence as he looked over at his
brother, who he caught in the act of blatantly appraising Anna.  “I ken that we
were supposed tae arrive in Williamsburg, but I’ve got a feeling that the storm
took us off course.”

“I don’t think
this is Williamsburg,” replied Anna.  “From what I heard, Williamsburg is much
colder than this.  Look at these trees!” she exclaimed, eyes drifting upwards
towards the unfamiliar palm trees.

“I think that
we’ve landed further south,” added Rowan.  “I’m not even sure that this is the
mainland.  Could be an island, ken?”

“Wherever we are,
we’d better find some shelter for the night.  It’s getting dark,” said Quinn,
ever the practical one of the three brothers.  “Malcolm!” he shouted down the
beach at his brother who was already exploring in the last light of the day. 

Malcolm trotted
obediently back up the beach, and joined his companions as they stood up,
brushing the remnants of sand from their clothes.  Anna was suddenly aware of
just how little the thin linen of her shift left to the imagination, and
crossed her arms defensively across her breasts. 

Seeing her
anxiousness, Rowan rucked his shirt up over his head and tossed it at Anna. 
“There’s my penance for askin’ ye tae strip out of yer gown,” he said as he
trudged towards the trees.

                                                            ***

“What’s a lass
like yerself doing all alone on a ship to the New World?”  Malcolm asked
breaking the silence as the dark began to shroud the beach. 

“How do you know
that I was traveling alone?”  Anna asked, knowing that Malcolm had not been
privy to her earlier confession.

“I don’t ken, it’s
just that if ye were traveling with someone, ye would probably be upset that
they hadna survived the shipwreck,” Malcolm said, toying with some sea grass to
keep his fingers occupied.

“Actually, I was
traveling to the New World to get married,” Anna said, smiling nervously,
crossing her arms in front of her and wrapping Rowan’s shirt more closely about
herself.  A chill was rising in the air, and she wondered how Rowan sat across
from her shirtless, seemingly unfazed by the cold.  She noticed just how
perfect his tan muscled body was, and how his trousers were slung low on his
hips, accentuating his toned abdominal muscles.  Rowan was no doubt a handsome
man; his angular jaw was now dusted with a day’s growth of stubble, lending him
a rugged look.  His jaw length chestnut hair had curled slightly from the
ocean, and fell loose ringlets about his shoulders. 

As she watched
him, she was intrigued by how his movements combined grace and controlled
power.  She felt a dull ache growing inside of her.  It was a feeling that she
had never experienced before, as if a fire was kindling deep within her.  In
proper London society, she had never seen a man with his shirt off, not even
her own Father.  Anna marveled at how Rowan’s muscles moved fluidly beneath his
tanned skin, and how comfortable he seemed with his nakedness.  She wondered
what it would feel like to touch him.

“Ohhh, tae whom?”
Malcolm prodded, snapping Anna’s focus back to the conversation.

“To someone that
I’ve never met before,” Anna divulged, shifting her gaze from Rowan back to his
brother, fingers playing in the sand in an effort to hide both her nervousness
about the topic and her embarrassment at the feelings that watching Rowan had
stirred within her.  “It’s a long story,” she said, eyes downcast.

“We’ve got nothing
but time,” Rowan said from his position on a log directly across from Anna. 
“Why don’t ye enlighten us?”

“His name is
Jonathan Arbor, and he’s an Officer in the King’s Army, and…” Anna’s voice
trailed off as she bit her lip as was her nervous habit, “…and that’s about all
that I know about him,” she finished, suddenly sounding quite unsure of
herself.

“Ye’ve never even
met him?” Malcolm asked skeptically, unable to hide the shock from his voice. 
“Why would ye want tae marry someone that ye’ve never met?”

“No, I’ve never
met him, but…” Anna trailed off as she chewed on her bottom lip as was her
nervous habit.  Malcolm was absolutely right.  Who would want to marry someone
that they had never met?  This was not how Anna had envisioned her marriage,
but the facts were simple.  She needed the money.  Stanton place desperately
needed the money. 

“Does that no make
ye worrit?  What if ye don’t like him or what if he’s grotesquely fat?” Malcolm
prodded with a sneer on his face as he imagined the horrors of what Jonathon
Arbor might look like.