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Instinctively, she knew not to look down and kept her eyes trained on the rungs as she climbed. Before she knew it, she was clambering into the barrel, Aidan holding on to the ladder with one hand and guiding her over with the other.
It truly was just a barrel sawed in half, with alternate slats removed, and she arranged herself as best she could, slipping her legs through the narrow gaps.
She realized Aidan was laughing. “What?” she demanded, summoning as much dignity as one could with one’s skirts bunched about one’s knees. But he only shook his head, so she pressed: “What is it?”
“It’s only that you flew up the rigging like a … like
a …” “A what?” “Well, like no overeager cabin boy I’ve ever seen. ” “Are you saying you think of me as a boy?” She’d spo
ken playfully. But then she caught his eyes devouring her bare legs, and she blushed.
“Certainly not,” he said in a husky voice. Clearing his throat, he tore his gaze from her pale skin. His eyes were hooded when they met hers.
He looked so dangerous, clinging to the rigging with that look in his eyes. Shyness struck her, paralyzing her tongue in her mouth.
His expression softened. “Don’t be shy on my account,” he told her quietly, sensing her discomfort. And of course he sensed it. Aidan seemed always to understand. Even when she’d not been able to string two words together without stuttering, he’d looked past her self-consciousness to see her true self.
He unleashed his most rakish smile. “You have lovely knees—it’s only right that you bare them to Neptune himself. And besides, they say a naked woman on board ship brings good luck. ”
“Aidan!” she shrieked, shocked and delighted in equal parts.
“I speak t
ruly. ” With an innocence she knew was feigned, he added gravely, “That is why so many ships bear a carved lady as a figurehead. ”
“Is it indeed?” She didn’t know how they’d found themselves discussing such a thing as naked ladies carved upon ships’ bows. It made her skin feel taut and uncomfortable, as though it were stretched too tight over her bones.
A sharp gust tore her hair loose, and the wind lashed every which way over her bared calves. She couldn’t help but inhale deeply, taking a great gulp of that fresh air. It smelled extraordinary, so brisk and clean, she had to wonder if she were perhaps the first ever even to breathe it. It was so unlike the air of Aberdeen—the oily, fishy rot of its harbor, or the scent of mildew and dung that clung to their small cottage.
Clutching her wind-whipped hair to the side of her head, she eagerly devoured the vast gray swath of nothingness yawning before her. The open sea. So much water all around, it was incomprehensible.
For a moment, seated upon her glorious perch, she felt as if time had been suspended. Somewhere people were being born, living their lives, and dying, all in the space of her musings.
The wind gusted again, and she trembled.
“Are you afraid?” Aidan’s low, masculine voice cut through the keening sea air.
She looked down at him and shivered again, for an entirely different reason. He clung to the rope ladder, trying his best not to glance at her naked knees, his roguish eyes wrinkling in a smile meant only for her.
“No,” she said. “Not afraid. ”
Shaking his head, he grinned. “No, of course you’re not. ”
“Merely cold. ” She gave him a rueful smile.
“We’ll simply have to amend that. ” He gripped a broad hand around her knee, tucking warm fingers in the crook of it.
Her breath caught, his hand on her naked skin throwing her back in time, making her as heart-wrenchingly tongue-tied as she’d ever been when they first met.
The boat hit a wave and lurched, and Aidan swayed into her, his hand sliding higher up her skirts. The warmth of his touch turned into a scorching heat, searing up between her legs and inflaming her belly.
She gasped. Uncertain what to say or do, she filled the air with mindless chatter. “It’s so wide open out here. ”
He tore his eyes from her to gaze off into the distance. “Aye, so it is. Open and clean and sure. So much bigger than any plantation, or slave owner, or any of us. ”
“And perilous too. ” She followed his gaze, straining to make sense of the horizon. She imagined the hazy line where the earth itself curved out of sight. “There’s so much water—it’s overwhelming. Almost a little frightening. Do you ever worry about shipwrecks, or drowning?”
“Elspeth, afraid of something? I never thought I’d see the day. ” He smiled and gave her leg a squeeze, and then, with a shrug, looked back to the horizon. “It’s not the sea that scares me. The sea will kill a man, but that’s who she is. She casts no judgment, sees no difference between a man with money and one with none. Even the storms have a kind of resolve—as though only nature herself knows what she’s truly about. You speak of all this water, but I didn’t know peace until I was on the water, headed back to Scotland. ”
