Percy took her in his arms and kissed her head. “You were hard-pressed.”
“Yes, I really was!”
“You were sick, then we had nothing to eat or drink and we were left in the sun all day and those people were giving us terrible looks.”
“Yes, all of that happened!”
“I suppose anybody would have reacted just the same.”
“Really?” Felicity asked.
“Well, perhaps not exactly the same,” Percy said with a snort of laughter. “But youwerehard-pressed.”
The housekeeper, Mrs. MacLeod, returned with the whisky. Felicity recovered quite a bit of her spirits after downing that strong drink. The good lady set her up with a hot bath and then made them a simple but very good dinner accompanied by more whiskey.
Mrs. MacLeod explained that there was one other servant in the place, a young man named Angus MacCray who acted as man of all work.
Mrs. MacLeod wondered how they planned to occupy themselves on this little patch of rock as there was not much to do other than look out the windows. Even the little fishing boat the family used for outings on shore was gone for repairs.
Naturally, they had not considered that. They had both imagined a lovely castle on a remote beach where they might take long walks. They might even stop in at a friendly publican’s house of an evening. If there were a publican nearby, they did not suppose he would be friendly, nor could they walk there.
“Now,” she said, “what arrangements did you make with Finley MacDonald to come and collect you?”
“Finley MacDonald?” Felicity asked.
“The fellow who ran you over here.”
Felicity and Percy looked at one another. Felicity said, “I expect Mr. MacDonald will not have an interest in returning.”
“Finlay? Not get paid for a return trip?” Mrs. MacLeod said, her brow wrinkling. “That man would sell his wife for a shilling.”
“My wife was hard-pressed,” Percy said by way of vague explanation.
“I threw my luggage at him,” Felicity admitted.
“Oh aye,” Mrs. MacLeod said. “He won’t be back.”
Percy and Felicity retired that evening, their heads rather too full of whisky and dire ideas of never getting off the pile of rocks that had now become their home. They both stared into the darkness for some time before sleep overtook them.
The morning brought a better outlook. They had both been far too tired the evening before to be any good at rational thought.
The day was bright, Mrs. MacLeod made a fine hearty breakfast, and they discovered a sun-drenched balcony to sip their second pot of tea. The second pot restored them quite a bit and Percy speculated that lack of tea the day before had been responsible for… what happened.
They further investigated the castle and found a well-stocked library. One might not have imagined that reading would end up being a primary activity on one’s wedding trip, but they took to it. Lazy mornings on the balcony unless it rained, walksround the ramparts of an afternoon, simple but hearty dinners smoothed out with whisky, and cozying up in the library’s overstuffed settee of an evening before retiring early. On the nights they did not choose to read, they played cards and butchered the rules of piquet with abandon.
Perhaps the nights, with the heavy blackness enveloping them and only the sounds of the waves lapping outside the windows were their favorite. Neither had ever experienced the sort of silence that was to be had at Kisimul Castle. At home, one of Felicity’s sisters was always talking and Percy’s father was always shouting.
It was as if they were the only two people left in the world. They did not mind being the only two people left in the world, as they were well able to occupy themselves through those dark hours.
Eventually, these halcyon days began to wane. It began with noticing the breakfasts had started to get a little sparse. Then the dinners were served on smaller plates. The dinner the evening before had been entirely devoid of meat and the housekeeper had called it a traditional Scottish Pinch in honor of Saint Monroe Day.
Then Mrs. MacLeod gave them the bad news.
There was no such thing as a Scottish Pinch, or Saint Monroe, or a Saint Monroe Day. They were running out of food. A grocer was meant to come every fortnight by boat, but he’d been due eight days before and had not turned up. As the grocer was long known to her and as reliable as the rain, Mrs. MacLeod guessed that they were being ostracized. She speculated that the local people had found too much time to discuss Lady Felicity’s issuing challenges to various people to approach her and speak, and possibly having a gun, and her throwing her luggage, and then the fact that they were English and not particularly wanted in the first place.
As the food stores dwindled, they took to rationing their supplies and attempting to send smoke signals from the ramparts. Day after day, they watched fishermen with weathered faces hoist their sails and tack by the castle, refusing to even look in their direction.
They were down to their last few pieces of stale bread when a distant relation of the O’Neils turned up. Somebody had sent him word that an English couple was being held captive in his cousin’s castle and he’d arrived prepared to do battle with criminals. He was rather surprised to find that the enemy to be thwarted was only a handful of offended fishermen.
