Page 2 of Bride of the Wicked Laird
She looked around frantically, her breath heaving in her chest. Where could she go? She looked at the dark stretch of water before her and shuddered. For as long as she could remember the thought of entering water and the water rushing over her head caused her to almost shatter into a million pieces. Her teeth were chattering and her entire body was trembling. She was terrified to advance, yet the men were gaining on her and within seconds they’d be upon her. A vision of being dragged back to the nunnery and being greeted by a cruelly smirking Dame Maria was enough to bring her to desperation. She couldovercome the terror caused by the thought of entering the water. Somehow, she would swim to the Isle of Mull.
Then came a shout from one of the burly men giving chase. “Hey, ye. Lass. Stop. Ye’re nay permitted tae leave the convent.”
She flew across the beach, giving thought to nothing but the dark shape of the Island of Mull looming over the water ahead of her. Surely it was not too far. If only she could swim, she could make it there.
Clenching her jaw, she flung herself into the sea. Forcing herself to accept the salty water rushing over her knees and up her legs, she waded out until she could no longer touch the pebbles and sand on the bottom. Death was better than going back she repeated to herself as a mantra.
By now the two men were standing on the shore, watching her and waving. She ignored their calls and dived under the water, pushing with her hands, the way she’d seen the seals doing with their flippers. She moved along underwater and then rose to the surface to gulp another lungful of air before diving under again, all the while flapping her hands and pushing herself forward. When she lifted her head from the water again, the shore had been left behind.
If only she could keep swimming like that, she would be in Mull in no time.
But of course, Davina was soon forced to admit to herself that she couldn’t. Although she tried hard and made some progress,her arms turned into lead weights, too heavy to push again and again. Her legs grew tired of kicking and, before long, instead of pushing her to the surface, they tangled in her ragged kirtle and slowly sank beneath her. Each time she struggled to the surface it was more difficult to catch a breath before she went under again. The terror she’d been pushing deep down in her heart, began to resurface with a mighty force.
Arms and legs aching, her lungs unable to haul in the breath she so desperately needed, she felt the pull of the water taking her down. Her hair had come loose and floated around her as she flailed her arms and legs, but no matter how hard she tried her tired body could no longer find the energy required to bring her to the surface.
Down, down, she floated, her chest aching as she struggled to draw breath, all the while her lungs filling with water. The end of her flight had come and, somehow, drowning seemed like a weightless, floating, rest from all her struggles, the end of all the cruelty and pain she’d had to endure. She closed her eyes and allowed the waters of the Sound of Iona to close over her.
CHAPTER TWO
Everard, the Laird of the MacNeils, flicked his night-dark hair across his shoulder. His blue eyes were fixed on the menacing barrier of grey clouds building out at sea. His men had almost finished loading his big birlinn riding at anchor in the lee of the Island of Mull and, with any luck, they would safely returned to his home in Kiessimul Castle, on the Isle of Barra, before the storm struck.
As the last crate of chickens and two barrels of wine were lugged on board by the crew, he gave the order to unfurl the big sails and one-by-one his men took their places at the oars.
Everard’s aide and advisor, Hugo MacRae, untied the mooring and, as he pulled the rope on board, the ship slipped away, the oarsmen straining and the breeze filling the sails. Everard took the rudder and within minutes the village of Fionnphort was nothing more than a tiny dot in the distance.
He would be glad to return home. His stay on Mull had been necessary, but not enjoyable. Although his negotiations with theLaird Alexander MacDougall had been cordial, they were always far from friendly. He’d never been comfortable around the man, although he professed a hearty kind of comradeship with much back-slapping, hand-shaking and shared jugs of ale. Everard suspected MacDougall to be allied with the English king, Edward, the son of Longshanks, the man who was Scotland’s greatest adversary, while the MacNeils were loyal subjects of the true Scots king, Robert the Bruce.
He smiled to himself. The trade route between the Isles was of utmost importance as Barra and the Small Isles depended on their trading. Although the seat of MacDougall’s territory was Lorne, on the mainland, Laird Alexander MacDougall kept control of large swathes of the western Isles as Lord of Argyll. It seemed word had come to him that Everard was in league with privateers from the Island of Canna. After much discussion and a great deal of flattery and many lies, a truce of sorts had been declared between the two lairds. As with many such truces between clans, it was a shaky affair that could change at the whim of the powerful laird.
His reverie was abruptly halted as Everard’s searching gaze lit upon something floating in the water. As they drew closer, he saw that the object was a body.
“Hold,” he ordered. The rowers put up their oars and he turned the rudder so that the ship sailed close to the object. As they drew alongside, he saw it was a woman, her long chestnut tresses floating around her.
Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, Everard undid his belt and let his great kilt fall to the deck as he dived over the side of the birlinn. Within a few short strokes he was beside her, turning her face from the water.
“The lass is near drowned,” he called to the men assembled on the deck. “Help me lift her on board.”
As Everard held her up, a dozen hands helped to pull her from the waves. He hauled himself on board and pulled his plaid around him, shivering, while the crew laid her on the boards of the deck. Water spilled from her nose, her ears and poured from her mouth. He rolled her over, pressing his hands on her back pumping her free of the water that had deluged her insides.
Hugo kneeled beside Everard, and with a linen cloth he dried her eyes and mouth, keeping the tangle of her hair from her face. “She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
Everard had no eyes for her beauty, he was too busy clearing the water from her chest. After what seemed like hours but was, in reality, mere instants, the lass gulped in a breath, her chest heaved, she spat up yet more water but, this time, after she’d choked and gasped as the water flowed, she gave a loud moan.
“She lives,” Hugo called to the assembled crew.
Everard, still kneeling beside the lass, yelled. “She’s like ice. Bring blankets.” At once two crew members appeared bearing two woven woolen rugs. He wasted no time in tearing off the wet ragged skirt that was twisted around her legs binding themtightly, and quickly swaddled her in the cloth. He held her limp body against him, using his own body-heat in an effort to warm her frozen blood.
The lass was almost gone.
She lay prone in his arms, her chest rising and falling unevenly as she fought for breath. But despite the hopeful signs that she was returning to life, her eyes remained closed and her face as white as a seagull’s wing. He pressed an ear to her chest. Her heartbeat was faint but steady.
Everard looked down at her face. Hugo spoke true, she was beautiful, her features were even in a heart-shaped face, her nose short and straight, with only the tiniest upturn and the faintest sprinkling of pale freckles. Her mouth was wide, her teeth white and even. He imagined that mouth smiling as she talked, her lips plush and rosy, not blue and deathly as they were now. Her lashes were long and dark, and although her eyes were hidden, he imagined them with golden lights, sparkling and joyous as she laughed.
He shook his head to dispel his fantasy of this lost waif. He would wait until she was fully awake and then find out who she was, where she had come from and what she was doing afloat and near drowned in the Sound of Iona.
The ship had turned when Everard had ordered it to change course to retrieve the lass and the breeze was driving it back to shore. The oarsmen had resumed their benches and were holding up their oars, ready for their orders.
“We return tae the Isle of Mull. Tae Fionnphort,” he signaled to Hugo, who took his place at the rudder, turning the ship, and the men began to row. The birlinn, its sails full, skimmed the water while Everard held the lass close to his heart, breathing gently into her mouth to aid the rise and fall of her chest, striving to steady her ragged breath.
