The Rogue of Islay Isle (Highland Isles) Read online

  Lightning flashed outside the windows, followed by a crack of thunder. “Ye should get home, Bea, before the clouds open up.” He watched out the window as a splinter of light crossed the sky through the clouds, as if cleaving them open with a blade. Another streak lit the billowing mass, illuminating the sea below like midday. In the flash he saw angry waves rising up to beat against the rocky shore, and…was that a…?

  Rain pelted the thick glass panes his grandfather had set in the window openings. Cullen rubbed a hand across the cold glass and watched lightning zigzag down. Aye, he was right. There was a ship tossing in the swells, halfway to the horizon. Keeping himself from blinking, he waited, knowing exactly where it battled to stay above the waves.

  Flash. The large ship bobbed sideways, her tall masts like limbless trees reaching up to the angry clouds. The sails were collapsed, probably tied down by anxious sailors who prayed and ran about while their captain steered into each swallowing wave. Would it hold together through the night or break up in the brutal smash of wind and water?

  Cullen’s nose brushed the glass as he stared, waiting for another lightning strike. When it came, he didn’t see the ship. Could it be lost in a swell or sinking to the bottom of the icy black sea? For long minutes he watched, occasionally spying the tips of masts still pointed toward the angry heavens. He turned, shaking his head.

  “There’s a wretched ship being tossed…” His words trailed off as his gaze fell on Beatrice, flopped back across his bed, eyes closed and mouth open, the empty cup clutched to her bosom. Sound asleep. Aye, the lass couldn’t hold her whisky.

  Cullen slid his hands down his face as if to scrape his skin from his skull. He could carry her home to her mother, Agnes MacDonald, but the lass might get a beating, and she’d be soaked through. He sighed, resigned.

  Beatrice mumbled as he lifted and settled her into his bed. He pulled the covers up to her chin. He’d sleep in the empty chamber next door. Och, she’d have a headache in the morn.

  Cullen returned to the window, but the lightning had ebbed, leaving a world swallowed by inky black. His reflection stared back at him from the glass, splashed in an intricate rain pattern, and he said a brief prayer for the souls caught in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.

  Chapter Two

  A dull ache pulsed and ebbed like a wave across the back of the woman’s head. Eyes shut, she listened to the breeze and lapping ripples of the now calm sea. Freezing. Wet through. I am dead. But why was there such pain? Was she in hell? It was too cold for a fiery pit.

  She tried to move within the confines of…she didn’t know. Her back ached, a bar of some kind wedged against it, but she was too weak to roll away.

  Where was she? Long minutes blended together as she concentrated on breathing, trying to hold on to wisps of consciousness. The caw of sea birds gave her a focus. As she followed their sorrowful song, the darkness behind her eyes began to brighten to red, the warmth of dawn touching her cheeks.

  Her hand slid from her stomach down next to her body. Water splashed as her fingers hit a puddle by her side. Was her whole body lying in water?

  The crunch of heavy footsteps on pebbles and breaking shells shot panic through her. She must get up. She must run, escape. But the puddle surrounded her, hugging her in its cold embrace. She was a hostage of her own exhaustion. Betrayal slid like poison through her blood, burning tears behind her eyes. Something besides her own body had betrayed her once. Someone. Who?

  A deep voice jarred her with fear, pulsing frantically with each heartbeat. She pried against the seal of her eyelids. Open.

  Warmth slid against her cheek to her neck. A hand. Touching her. Pulse pounding, she forced her eyes open, her fists balling up. A man. He cursed, his face contorted in fury.

  Non! She threw her fists upward, her weak muscles straining in a rapid volley, her knuckles striking hard.

  “Stad!” he yelled, catching her flailing wrists. She struggled, but he was too strong, and she was pathetically weak. The man held her easily with one hand as his other grabbed his nose. Exhaustion swamped her again, dragging her under to where she hovered along the edge of half alive. Only pain and cold existed here. Her throat burned with fire while the rest of her surrendered to numbness.

  The man spoke again, guttural sounds she couldn’t comprehend. He moved her hair, working at her battered neck. Her body shifted as he lifted under her shoulders, liberating her from the suck of the wet coffin. She pried her eyes open and licked her parched lips. Where was she? But the pain in her throat was thick, giving rise to a whimper instead of a question.

  The man’s face blocked the sky above as he looked down at her. Dark hair framed brown eyes, one of which he squinted. His full mouth formed a frown over a neat beard, trimmed close to his strong jawline. Blood trickled from his nose.

  She watched his lips move, but his words didn’t make sense to her ears. A tremor of panic rattled her sore head. Had she lost all reason?

  He walked. Long, powerful strides. “No Gaelic? Do ye speak English, then?” he asked, looking ahead as he climbed the embankment. She stared up at a lock of dark hair, which curled behind the ear she could see. His gaze met hers as his face swam in and out of focus. She tried to keep sight of the golden flecks in his one good eye.

  “English? Do ye understand me?”

  The accent was strange, but the words reached her sluggish mind. She nodded, the ache in her head threatening tears. She opened her mouth to speak, fingers rising to her injured throat.

  “Ye can’t talk with your throat so bruised,” he said and adjusted her in his arms. “Hold on, lass.”

  The man trudged up an incline until the rocky crunch of his boots softened as he tread across grass. Shouts came, more words her mind couldn’t catch.

  “I found her in a small boat on the shore,” the man holding her said in English. “Must have come from that ship tossing last night in the storm.”

  Ship? Yes. She plainly remembered the thrashing tilt of a ship beneath her feet, the crashing waves and tall masts. Sea spray cold against her skin. She stiffened as a cruel leer, in a rat-like face, flashed through her memory.

  “Cullen, what the hell happened to ye?” another man asked, taking up position on his side. He shouted away from them.

  “No need to call the men,” the one carrying her said. “I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “But who…? Ye mean the lass did that to your face?” a third man asked.

  A low rumble of laughter floated around her as she rocked with the man’s steady stride. “So a wee, near-drowned lass beat Cullen Duffie bloody?” the first asked with obvious mirth. “Retribution for the hearts ye’ve broken.”

  “Was she wielding a mace?”

  The man holding her, Cullen Duffie, rattled off a series of words she didn’t understand, causing the others to chuckle.

  More footfalls thudded closer. “Who is she? And what the bloody hell happened to your face?”

  “The lass beat him bloody.”

  “She hasn’t said her name,” Cullen said. She tried to follow the words floating around her like fish in a pond, but most swam out of reach.

  “The lass blackened your eye and broke your nose? Ye jest?”

  “It isn’t broken,” Cullen said, annoyance heavy in his accent. He sniffed, shifting her in his hold. “Get the damn door.”

  “Is she English?”

  “There’re roses on her dress.” One man whistled softly. “’Tis a rich costume, from the English court maybe.”

  “Take Errol out with ye, and a few more, to search the shore for wreckage,” Cullen ordered. “I’ll come down as soon as I can.”

  The echo of steps, and the sudden cessation of wind, told her she was inside. A woman gasped, speaking in little rushes of strange words.

  “I think she’s English,” Cullen said. He carried her up steps. Limp in his arms, she felt her toes brush against a wall. Her sopping skirts weighed her down, dripping.

  “What happen
ed to ye?” the woman asked.

  “’Tis nothing. I startled her.”

  “She punched ye? God’s teeth, Cull. She looks about as dangerous as a newborn lamb.”

  “A newborn lamb with sharp knuckles and bloody good aim.”

  She pried her eyes open, and the woman’s face filled her view. Lines feathered out from her round eyes, showing her age and surprise. She felt the woman take her hand. “Broke the skin on her knuckles too.” She tsked.

  “Take her to the room next to yours,” the woman continued in English. As they strode along a corridor encased in crude stone, a door opened, followed by another gasp. A young woman in a white chemise stood at the door. She spoke the unknown language, and the older woman glared at Cullen while speaking to the girl. “Send your ma, Beatrice, with her tinctures and poultices.”

  The girl ran down the hall.

  “I can’t believe ye, Cullen,” the older woman chided, her tone both deflated and full of checked fury. “Send her home with a good talking to, indeed.”

  “Not now.” He pushed past her into a cold room with rumpled blankets on the bed. “The lass is soaked through and frozen,” he said and laid her down. “I’ll start a fire and send up water. Ellen must know of some clothing available.”

  The older woman began to unlace her sodden sleeves, moving wet, matted hair from her shoulder. The feel of the clinging fabric rasped across her icy-raw skin, but she remained too weak to pull away. The tugging stopped, and the woman swore softly. “Och, Cullen, did ye see her neck?”

  Eyes closed, she listened to the two of them. Their words were thick with a tumbling accent, their sentences like water bubbling in a swollen stream. Some words were English, but others were definitely foreign. And the dialect was so unlike… She wasn’t sure, couldn’t remember what accent she was accustomed to hearing, what language she knew.

  “Aye, I cut it from her neck at the shore.”

  “Do ye think she was being hanged?” the woman whispered.

  Hanged? The half-drowned woman almost reached for her neck. A rope tied around it, chafing into her skin, bruising her windpipe. She swallowed at the memory and cringed with the pain. A small flame of anger ignited in her middle. How dare she be tethered like a dog. The fury grew inside her, renewing her strength to stir.

  The older woman clucked her tongue. “Agnes will have a poultice to help the skin and a brew to reduce the swelling. It’s a wonder the lass can breathe.”

  Behind them another woman’s voice called out. Confusion beat at the girl, weighing her down, as the two women spoke quickly back and forth like hens clucking. The man dipped close to her face, wiping a cloth over her lips. He drizzled a bit of water into her mouth, which she swallowed past the pain.

  “Ye’re safe, lass.” His words were smooth with gentle encouragement, his breath warm against her cheek. Everything about him was warm, but her heart pounded at his closeness.

  You are special. Let no man come near you. A memory of a woman speaking to her floated into her mind and back out like vapor, but the fear remained.

  “Who is she?” the second woman asked. She rounded the bed with hard strides, much like her voice.

  “We don’t know,” the first lady said as they rolled her gently to unlace the stays of her stomacher.

  “Call her Rose for now,” the man replied from far away, probably near the door. “The flower is embroidered all over her gown.”

  …

  “Agnes said the woman was being hanged.” Farlan’s voice boomed from the shadows in the keep’s entryway. Cullen strode past his uncle into the great hall. He’d just returned from searching the shoreline several miles up from Dunyvaig but had found nothing more. Rose and her small boat were the only things to wash ashore. The ship either sank to the bottom of the sea or left her behind. Had they realized she’d gone overboard and given up trying to find her in the dark waves?

  “She’s dangerous,” his uncle William said from his usual station at the long table, running the length of the hall. “Practically blinded ye.” William stood up, his heavy chair scraping the wood floor. “Wealthy and being hanged, perhaps by one of the other clans or the English. Maybe she’s a spy. She could be from Spain or France under English guard. We should hand her over to Captain Taylor in Oban.”

  His uncles were already plotting the best way to use the poor woman. Cullen met their stares with a sharp, direct glare past his swollen eye. “The lass will heal in safety here at Dunyvaig Castle.”

  “If Captain Taylor and the other one—” Farlan started.

  “Thompson,” William said. “Captain Thompson.”

  “If they find her here…” Farlan pointed his finger at Cullen in sharp pokes. “And she’s a spy, they will bring their combined forces against us. The English are always looking for a good reason to seize Scottish lands, especially with King Henry declaring war on Scotland this past spring!” Both Scotland and France were on King Henry’s war list, as the crafty monarch lied and ingratiated himself into Spain and Germany.

  “Ye will bring doom for Clan MacDonald,” William added without a pause, giving his brother time to take a breath and continue their volley.

  “Ye must think of what is best for the clan, Cullen,” Farlan said, raising his arms wide as if the whole clan stood behind him instead of a wall of dusty tapestries. “Ye can’t be selfish like your da.”

  The words prickled up inside Cullen, grazing the barely healed wounds from his youth. Nothing good had been expected of Cullen’s father, and the man had nearly lived up to the names he’d been called. Except that he’d loved his wife and son with as much wild abandon as he’d craved whisky and gambling. And they had loved him.

  “Strength and prudence must be employed as a leader,” William said, his mouth opening even before Farlan’s closed. Did they rehearse their bombardments? When Cullen’s grandfather was chief, Cullen barely heard his uncles speak. Now they never shut up.

  “Self-sacrifice and wisdom,” Farlan said.

  William took a step closer. “Honor to the clan above all others.”

  “Duty and justice,” Farlan said.

  William brought his fingers together. “Pious devotion to God and a serious nature.”

  Cullen strode to the hearth as his uncles continued to throw out words that barely had anything to do with the situation. Characteristics that, if Cullen displayed them all to his uncles’ approval, he would be a priest, a judge, or God himself. By now his grandfather would have either thrown the two into the dungeons below or run them through with his sword. Maybe not in a mortal area, since they were his sons, but somewhere that would require Agnes’s healing poultices for months.

  Cullen kicked the clump of peat over in the hearth so the flames could catch and turned to stand with his back to it, arms across his chest. His uncles hadn’t mentioned the virtue of patience even though Cullen’s vast personal supply of it was currently saving their skins.

  Cullen leveled his gaze on his uncles. “I understand the duties of chief, and I swore to uphold them. I also know better than to react before understanding a situation. For all we know the lass is English royalty, and King Henry himself will thank us for her safe return.” Doubtful, but a reason his uncles were more likely to understand than the fact that Cullen was snared by the mystery surrounding the beautiful woman.

  Cullen met their stony gazes. “Until we find out who she is, Rose is a guest—”

  “Who the bloody hell is Rose?” William asked.

  “Rose? Rose who? The woman?” Farlan followed.

  Cullen pinched the top of his nose between his eyebrows. “Aye. She had roses on her gown, so until we know her true name, she is called Rose.” People were less likely to sacrifice something with a name, which was why cattle were never given them. Although his uncles didn’t look like they cared. They’d throw the lass to the wolves if they thought she’d delay an English invasion.

  Cullen pivoted toward the sound of light footsteps. His mother emerged from the dark
alcove into the great hall. “How is she?” he asked.

  Charlotte wiped her hands on her apron. “Sleeping. We managed to get some broth in her and a honey brew with chamomile. And Agnes and I washed the sea from her skin. She’s dry and warm. Bruised, but nothing seems broken, thank the good Lord.”

  “Any way of knowing who she is?” Farlan asked.

  Charlotte shook her head. “And the poor thing can’t speak, but she seems to understand when I talk in English. Her clothes are rich and…” She pulled her hand from the apron, a white necklace coiled in her palm. “She had these pearls sewn into the edge of her bodice, hidden. Careful, the strand is broken.”

  Charlotte tumbled them into Cullen’s hand. Heavy, real, worth gold coin. He pinched one large pearl that nestled in the middle. “It’s gray.”

  “A black pearl,” Charlotte said. “Rare and valuable.”

  “Stolen,” Farlan said.

  “A spy and a thief,” William said. The man scattered judgment on people like salt on stew.

  “Right now, she’s a nearly drowned waif of a lass,” Charlotte retorted. She raked William with an icy gaze. “She’s under my and Agnes’s care, so don’t ye think of pestering her.” She pointed to Farlan. “You either.”

  Farlan threw his arms up in the air and snorted. William scowled, his gaze shifting to Cullen with the usual condescending, slow head shake.

  Cullen slipped the pearls into a leather pouch he wore at his waist and turned as the outer doors to the keep banged shut. Errol MacDonald and Broc Duffie, Cullen’s cousins and best friends, traipsed into the hall. They were both tall with dark hair and finely tuned warrior instincts. But where Errol had the serious countenance of his father, William, Broc’s overly long hair framed an infectious grin from the Duffie side of the family.

  Broc rolled his eyes to the rafters when he saw Farlan and William pacing before Cullen. Errol nodded to his father. It must gall William that his son favored Cullen, even though Errol had never said as much. Childhood days of splashing in Loch Gorm and plotting how to steal tarts from the kitchens had created a bond that even his father’s grousing hadn’t severed.