MacFarlane's Ridge (20 page)

“Mm. Great ferocious bears,” agreed Rob. “Ian, d’ye remember the one that took off Tom Kerr’s arm? Must’ve been twelve feet high.”

Ian opened his mouth to say something, but Cam kicked him under the table. Tom had lost his arm thirty years ago at Culloden, and had probably never even seen anything more ferocious than a skunk up close. Cam looked imploringly at Mollie, who glanced her way and then simply left the table, to begin the nightly clean-up, most of which involved Hamish and his porridge.

Cam glanced at Rob out of the corner of her eye. He actually seemed to be enjoying himself, telling Wayne tall tales about the calamities that could befall the unwary. He was playing the part of the ignorant country settler to perfection. But Cam saw that the mirth did not reach his eyes. He was obviously quite aware of the deadly game in which he was involved. She began to wonder if there was a way she could get Rob alone, away from Wayne Sinclair, and talk to him.

“Well, then,” Rob announced. “It’s settled. I’ll ride with ye tomorrow to make sure ye get to the next settlement without any mishaps. Perhaps if the weather stays fine as it is, I’ll accompany ye all the way to Richmond. I have a ship there, it would do me good to look in on her.” He got to his feet, belched and patted his stomach. “Mollie, another fine meal ye’ve made. Ye’ll make someone a wonderful wife some day.”

Mollie looked up, startled. “Thank ye, Rob. Ye’re kind to say so.” She finished with the dishes, and wiped her hands on her apron. Troubled, she looked at Ian and Rob.

Ian caught her look, and blurted out, “Perhaps a story, Mollie?”

She nodded, relieved. “Aye. A story would be fine on a chilly night like this, aye? Master Sinclair, do ye like a good tale before the fire?”

“Er, yes,” Wayne beamed. “Thank you. What sort of story is it?” He settled himself uncomfortably close to Cam, who suddenly found herself wishing she could make herself invisible.

“Tell us about the old granny woman and the giant,” suggested Ian.

“Mm, no,” mused Mollie. “Perhaps another time. I have a fine one for Master Sinclair, though. Perhaps one about a selkie.”

“What’s a selkie?” asked Cam, puzzled.

Ian picked up Hamish and began to rock him gently. The boy stuck his fingers in his mouth and watched Cam intently.

“The
Sassenachs
– the English – call them seals, but they are magical creatures,” said Mollie with a smile. “They can shed their skins, you see, and come up on shore in human form. A selkie lass is very beautiful, and if a human man finds her skin on the shore, he may keep it and hide it, and then the selkie lass must be his faithful wife forever. Now, if she can find where the man hid her skin, she may put it back on and slip back into the sea, and the man will ere long pine away from loneliness. The male selkies… they are fine to gaze upon as well, and many an unhappy woman has found joy in the arms of a selkie man. The selkie men are handsome and dark and strong, and they are the ones who cause there to be storms at sea, and shipwrecks, for they are angry that men hunt them for their pelts.”

The room was quiet, save for the soft popping of the fire, and the clacking of Mollie’s knitting needles.

“So, a long, long time ago, there was a poor lass named Katie Beaton. Her mam and her Da had died, and she lived alone in a tiny croft on the Isle of Kilgraeme. One day a man from a nearby village came to her and said he’d been watching her, and thought her the most beautiful lass he had ever laid eyes on, and asked her to marry him. But Katie Beaton was a wise lass, and said she didna know that she should marry him, as he had not spoken o’ love but only of her beauty.

“The man, who was called Tormod MacNeill, was angry at this, and said he had plenty of money and it did not matter if they loved each other, for he would give her whatever she wanted. Katie Beaton told him,
I do not need your great house and your money, for all I wish is to remain here by the sea.
Tormod MacNeill laughed, then, and said,
Foolish girl, I shall give you until sunrise tomorrow to change your mind, or I shall burn down your little house and then you shall have to come live as my wife
, and off he went, laughing, back to his fine house with all his servants.”

Hamish began to snore delicately in his father’s lap.

“Poor Katie Beaton,” sighed Mollie, as the knitting needles clicked rhythmically. “She didna want to leave her home by the sea to go live wi’ someone she could not love, especially not a man as wicked as Tormod MacNeill. She sat on the edge of the water and cried, and her tears rolled down into the sea, where they attracted the attention of a selkie. Well, this was a selkie who had lived there on the rocks near her house for years, and he had seen her before too, and he had heard the things that Tormod MacNeill had said to Katie Beaton. So that night, when the moon was high, the selkie came ashore and shed his skin, and beneath the skin he looked like a human man, and a fine handsome one he was. He was tall and dark, with hair black as the seal pelt he wore, and eyes even more blue than the sea in which he lived.

“And the selkie, whose name was Eoghan, knocked on the door of Katie Beaton’s house, and he said to her,
I know you dinna ken me at all, but I have loved ye for years and years. If you would stay with me, I would let ye stay here by the sea forever, for I know ‘twould make you happy
. And Katie Beaton smiled at Eoghan, and told him,
But I do ken who ye are, selkie, for I have watched ye on the rocks in the water for a long time, and have loved you as well.
And so the next morning at sunrise, when Tormod MacNeill came back to fetch Katie Beaton, he could not find her. He asked after her with all the villagers, and they could only tell him that if Katie Beaton had gone into the sea with a selkie, like as not, she would never return.”

Mollie smiled at Cam. “But it didna matter that she never returned to the wee croft, for she lived on the rocks in the sea with her black-haired Eoghan for the rest of her years,” she said softly. “And they were happy for all their days, and ‘tis all that mattered, aye?”

There was no sound but the gentle whooshing of the wind outside the house. Cam closed her eyes and could almost see Katie Beaton in the arms of her selkie.

Wayne cleared his throat loudly, and stretched. “Well, a fine story that was, but I know we have a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Perhaps we should turn in for the night, my dear?”

Cam gaped at him in astonishment. There was no way she was getting in a bed with Wayne Sinclair. “I’m not tired.”

“Master Sinclair,” interjected Rob, “ our Mollie has become accustomed to your wife’s presence. Surely you wouldn’t mind Cameron spending her last night sharing Mollie’s bed rather than sleeping on the floor out here?”

Wayne looked skeptical, but conceded. “Ah, certainly. Besides, my wife and I will have plenty of time to become reacquainted later on.” He smiled at Cam, and she shivered involuntarily. He looked like a cat ready to pounce.

Rob started for the door. “That is good of you, sir. You know how women are, aye?” He paused, as if suddenly remembering something. “Perhaps I could borrow your wife for a few moments? One of our calves has been ill and Mistress Sinclair has taken quite a liking to the wee fellow.”

Cam looked expectantly at Wayne. This would be her only chance. Obviously he thought he was getting his way, because he shrugged indifferently. “Sure, sure. Don’t stay up too late, dear. We’ll be leaving at sunrise.” He winked at Cam and she turned away. Rob held the door for her, and she scooped up her shawl and strode out without looking back.

As soon as the door shut behind her she whirled to face him. “Rob! Please tell me you – “

“Quiet,” he ordered. “Dinna say a word until we are away from the house.”

Instead of going to the barn, he made his way up the path to the small cabin, now near completion. It was late, but there was enough moonlight that she could see Rob, a large dark shadow, ahead of her. He moved quickly, and Cam struggled to keep up. Finally, when they reached the top of the hill, he stopped and turned to her.

“Rob, now do you believe me?” she panted.

“Aye, I do, at least the part about this man not being your husband. I dinna know what to think of your story about the Faeries’ Gate, but that’s no’ really the point, is it, lass?”

“What am I going to do? I can’t prove that he isn’t my husband,” she stated. “He’s dangerous, and probably armed. And if I leave with him, he’ll kill me and then come back to take Mollie. He told me he would, and I believe him.”

Rob frowned. “Aye. And ye canna very well turn him in to the authorities, not without drawing attention to yourself.” He looked down at her. “Ye realize the obvious solution would be for me to kill yon odd-eyed Master Sinclair.”

Cam’s blood ran cold. “No,” she said slowly. “No, I don’t want you to do that. Not because of him, I mean, I would be thrilled if someone put a bullet in his head at this point. But you… I don’t want it to be you. I can’t ask you to do that.”

He moved closer. “Why not, Cameron Clark?”

Cam looked up at him. “It would change you. You’d be different and you’d blame me for it, and even if I asked you to do it, it would change the way I feel about you.”

Their bodies were practically touching now. “And how is it that ye feel about me, Cameron Clark?” he asked softly.

She looked at him helplessly. “I think you know, don’t you?”

He nodded, “Aye. But I want to hear you say it.”

The moonlight glinted off the small scar on his cheek. She couldn’t tear herself away from the depths of his eyes. Cam realized that she wanted to hear it said as well. It was time, once again, for the truth.

“I love you, Robert MacFarlane,” she said simply.

Then he was kissing her, hard and furious. His hands were tangled in her hair, and he was enveloping her, crushing her tightly into his body. She could feel every muscle against her, and suddenly they toppled to the ground, and she was lying on top of him.

“Damn!” he exclaimed. “Sorry…”

“What?” she whispered.

“There is something beneath me,” he said, shifting slightly.

“Better?”

“No – argh, damn it, there’s a rock jabbing me in the arse.”

Cam looked up, and Charlie’s big slobbery doggy face was just inches from her nose. Suddenly she began to giggle uncontrollably. She buried her face in Rob’s coat and laughed harder and harder, until tears ran from her eyes. She lifted her head and looked at him. “I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t that funny.”

Rob smiled at her. “Tis all right, lass. Probably a good thing I landed on the bloody thing, or who knows what might have happened.”

She frowned. “What do you mean, a good thing?”

He took a deep breath, then rolled her off him gently, and sat up. He wrapped his arms around her, and she snuggled comfortably into them. “I want you, Cameron Clark, more than I have ever wanted anything in my life. And by God, it’s all I can do right now not to take ye right here on the cold ground like a common whore. But I willna’ do it.”

“Why?” she asked softly. “If you want me, and I want you?” She could feel his warm breath in her ear, and she thought of Katie Beaton and Eoghan, warming each other on the rocks in the sea.

“Because you’re not a common whore, you’re a lady, that’s why,” he grumbled.

She turned to look at him, mouth open in astonishment. “Are you actually telling me you won’t touch me?”

He laughed softly. “Aye, Cameron Clark, I will touch you eventually, ye can be certain of that. I only meant not here, not now. Not like this.”

She stared up at the stars. She had only met Rob a few weeks ago, but felt like she had known him forever. “How, then?”

Rob grinned, “In a great bed, where ye belong, on a fat feather mattress, with soft round pillows, and plump thick quilts like the one Mollie has.”

Cam opened her eyes, remembering. “Mollie! Rob, we need to figure out what to do about Wayne Sinclair!”

“Aye, well, I suppose the moment was gone once that stone pokered me anyway,” he said, kissing her gently on the forehead. He brushed the dry leaves off his coat, and picked a twig out of Cam’s hair. “But dinna think for a minute that we’ll not be taking this up where we left off.”

I would certainly hope so,
she thought, her heart pounding.

“As to Master Sinclair, I think it best we let him put some distance between himself and this ridge, ye ken? As I said, I’ll be accompanying you in the morning.”

Cam sighed. “But for how long?”

He turned her face to him. “As long as it takes, Cameron Clark.” He held her for a long time, then slapped her lightly on the rear. “C’mon, lass. They’ll be thinkin’ the worst if we dinna get home soon.”

“What are you going to tell Ian and Mollie?”

He shrugged. “I suppose I’ll think of something, aye?”

“Aye,” she agreed grimly. If she could get through tonight without bashing Wayne’s head in, there might be hope after all.

When they returned to the house, Ian had already wandered off to bed, and Wayne was curled up on a pallet by the hearth. Cam wanted to speak but Rob silenced her, putting a finger up to her lips.

“Goodnight, Mistress Sinclair,” he said formally. “Thank you for your assistance with yon wee calf.”