Page 50 of Taming the Heiress
"Love," Dougal said, "what is it?" He traced his fingers over her hair. They had dressed again and sat together on the sand, leaned against the rocky wall that still held the warmth of the day's sun, his arm wrapped over her shoulders. The water shushed and the moon sparkled over mild waves, and the exquisite joy of Norrie's fiddle sounded in the distance.
"Nothing. Just thoughts." She looked up, her cheek resting on his shoulder, her palm quiet on his chest. "Dougal, what was it you began to tell me the other day, in the cave?"
She saw him smile a little. "We have a little time now before they come looking for us, I suppose."
"They will not come looking for us," she said. "Grandmother and Mother Elga would not let them bother us if they know that we left together."
"Why? Two unmarried young people out alone in the moonlight... There is no predicting what they will do." He smiled and kissed her hair.
"Mother Elga and Grandmother Thora want us to go out in the moonlight together," she said. "They have wanted it all along, ever since they met you."
"That I find hard to believe."
"Tell me your story, Dougal Stewart, and I will tell you mine, and then you will understand."
He looked askance at her for a moment, then shrugged. "Very well. Seven years ago, just before sunset one evening, I raced a rowboat against another fellow. Both of us were fairly drunk at the time, after a wake for a fine old man whose wife made some very good whisky—George MacDonald of Tobermory."
"We knew him. A good man, indeed. Why were you there?"
"I had been studying the Caran Reef, taking measurements of the rocks, calculating the wave force, and so on. We were sure, even then, that a lighthouse was needed somewhere along the reef. Several of us had been on Mull for weeks, so we were at the wake. We were damn fools that night, and when some of my men boasted of our daring, my friend and I had no choice but to prove them right. He got sick over the side, poor lad, but I kept going, seeing my chance to win. And I soon found myself going down the throat of a sudden squall that turned evil very quickly. I could not get away. A wave washed me overboard, and I took a blow to the head and nearly drowned. I was saved—" He stopped suddenly. "Well, you would find that too wild to believe."
"What saved you?"
"I suppose it was a wave, washing me onto the great rock of Sgeir Caran," he answered. "But for a moment, I thought that a pair of beautiful horses carried me over the water." He shook his head as if bewildered.
"Horses! You mean you saw... sea kelpies?"
He shrugged. "Imagined them, more like. But when I landed on the rock and saw you... well. Again my imagination was in full force. I had taken a blow to the head that night."
"Then you were shipwrecked on Sgeir Caran," she breathed.
He nodded, rubbing his fingers along her shoulder. "Aye. So you see, there were no schemes to have some fun with the young and innocent girl who sat waiting on the rock."
She nodded. "I am so sorry that I believed that of you. But... well, I saw the men fetch you in the morning."
"So you concluded that it was arranged. I understand."
"Who were they?"
"Alan Clarke and another fellow," he said. "I've known Alan for years. He was the one I raced against. When I did not come back and the storm blew in, they gave me up for lost. But Alan refused to accept that. He and the other fellow rowed out to look for me once the weather calmed. At dawn that day, they saw me standing on the sea rock. Alan, as you know, is a bull of a man and powerful at the oars. If he had not been sick that night, I would have lost that race. And then I never would have ended up on Sgeir Caran—or found you there."
"So we owe Mr. Clarke a debt."
He smiled. "We do."
"Dougal, do they—did you ever tell them—"
"About us?" As he spoke, he smoothed his fingers over the shell of her ear, and shivers cascaded through her. "I have never said a word of it to anyone. It was too precious a secret. And I thought—" He paused, half laughed, then shook his head.
"What?" she asked, looking up at him.
"You will think me mad," he said. "I thought you were not even real, that you were... a sea fairy. I was hazed with drink and from a knock to the head, as well. I believed that you were magical... or that I had imagined you."
She stared up at him. "You thought I was a sea fairy?"
"Aye, or a selkie, or some kind of magical sea creature. A kelpie perhaps, or a mermaid, come into human form." He shrugged. "I can offer you no better explanation than that. You were so beautiful, so gentle and kind, and it was a miracle to find you there in the midst of that wild a storm, and... What is it?"
Meg began to laugh from sheer relief and joy in the irony of the situation. "You thought I was a sea fairy," she said, "and I thought you were the great kelpie himself, theeach-uisgeof Sgeir Caran!"
