Glenna glanced at the woman in fear, but there was no maliciousness in Harriet Cameron’s face.
“No one,” Glenna admitted in a whisper.
Harriet nodded. “That’s right.” She shook Glenna’s arm lightly. “Come on then.”
* * * *
The bright morning sunlight sparkled over the still-wet stones and grass as if the whole of Roscraig had been crusted in diamonds; the firth was a gray-green shimmer like the rippling robe of fae royalty, and Tavish stopped at the top of the steep, switchback stone steps that led down the side of the cliff of the rear courtyard to the beach, reveling in his triumph. His eyes prickled and he swallowed, closing them for a moment and taking a deep breath in through his nose of the gusting wind, so cool and fresh and free.
He’d won. At last.
He opened his eyes, ignoring the tickle of thought that hinted it had been too easy; his conscience that wanted to remind him of Glenna Douglas’s fine features, stricken pale, her thin form standing defiant before him in her rough gown.
You drank my wine?
She was not his problem. He started down the mossy, neglected stairs, not even the tall bank of dark clouds roiling in from the west able to shadow his conquest.
But he was forced to make allowances for the dire state of the prize he’d won and the immensity of the tasks that lay before him by the time he reached the wet, brown beach and saw Captain John Muir slogging through the shallows toward him. The end of Roscraig’s dock—mayhap more than half of it—was completely gone, the black tops of ancient, rotted pilings gasping at the surface between waves. Two ships hands were turning the dinghy back toward theStygianwhen Muir and Tavish met with a clasp of hands.
“They’ll take new measurements before we come any closer,” John said as a greeting. “The maps we have of Roscraig’s shore are old—’tis as though none have traded with the hold in fifty years.”
“That I can believe,” Tavish allowed. “Had you any trouble from the harbor?”
John Muir nodded curtly, his tanned face stern inside the circle of white created by his close-cropped gray hair and short beard. He was only ten years Tavish’s senior, but a more temperate and wise man Tavish had never met, and Tavish was more proud to call John his closest friend than he was the captain of his ship.
“You may tell your English mate that ’twas right of you to leave ahead of us. The burgess had us boarded and searched. He seemed desperate to find you aboard ship.”
Tavish’s blood boiled. “Did he take anything?”
“Nay. There was little he could say about a cargo of crew and personal goods leaving Leith. I told him where for we were bound, but I expect he didna believe me. We’ll be followed.”
“Let him follow—he’s no power beyond Leith. As soon as Roscraig is outfitted, we’ll not drop anchor there again short of a request from the king himself.”
“There’s more,” Muir said. “The night of your departure from Market Street, the shop caught fire.”
“What?” Tavish said, his anger chilling slightly.
The captain’s face was grim. “Burned to the very cellar, Tav. Naught left but charcoal. Took the two shops to either side of it, as well, before the rain came.”
His shop was gone. The place that held all of his childhood memories, both good and bad. The only place before Roscraig he’d ever known as home, and his failsafe if the king decided against him.
Now there was nothing to go back to.
“Was any one hurt?”
Muir shook his head. “Nay. Rumor in the taverns is that the burgess set his lackeys to it. Not that any would stand up with an oath.”
“Of course not.” Tavish cursed softly and then sighed. “He would have never let up, as long as I was in Edinburgh. Mam will be upset that the place is gone.”
Muir turned toward the land to look up at the backside of the stone keep. “Was she abandoned?”
Tavish mirrored the captain’s pose, glad to change the subject, and both men admired the rocky promontory jutting toward the firth like the giant bow of a mythical ship.
The captain’s query called to Tavish’s mind the deep gouges in the entry door beyond the moat; the way Glenna Douglas had sought to lock him in a chamber.
“Not exactly,” Tavish said. “Naught I canna bring to heel, though.”
“Good,” John grunted. “I’ve brought all you asked from Market Street, and glad I am that we loaded it so soon. Will you be needing more from the town straight away?”
