Page 34 of A Highland Rogue to Ruin

“What if ye nay have yer astrolabe? Like now?”

He chuckled. “I look at the shore.” He gestured to the beach as if the answer were obvious.

She raised her eyes to the stars and shook her head. “Ye ken what I mean. If ye’re out at sea and canna’ see land and have no astrolabe—”

“I’d make a shite captain then,” he laughed. “Is my angel planning to sail away, now that she’s tasted the freedom of saltwater beneath her?”

She laughed.

“Here. Come.”

He swept aside the game, the pieces tumbling, and lay upon his back, propping his leagues of legs up onto the bench.

“Ye destroyed our game!” She glared.

He merely frowned and crooked his hand more forcefully at her to come to him, quoting, “Watch the stars, and see yerself running with them.”

She furrowed her brow, but lay down beside him, a Tafl pawn jabbing her thigh. She giggled and lifted to pull it out from beneath her while he opened his arm to her.

“Who wrote that? I should love to read it.”

“The Roman emperor Aurelius. I sail often by the stars. I love my tools and find how they work fascinating, but none are so poetic as the heavens as my guide.”

She propped her head upon his bicep, feeling his arm come around her shoulders and his hand wedge beneath her arm, tucking her more tightly to him, as if the most natural way to hold her. The water lapped around them, echoing softly from within the belly of the vessel. His scent once more enveloped her. Warmth. Sagebrush. Sea breeze. A faint hint of male exertion. A potion she should love to burrow against for sleep. He lifted a hand and pointed, the yardarm bisecting her view, and so she squeezed closer still to him, curling into his side to hug his hip and torso with her belly so she could see.

“The North Star. On a cloudless night, it is bright, a steady anchor in the sky. Or I look for the wee plow to get my bearings.”

“Plow?”

She glanced up at him, his jaw so close and the dark stubble of his beard growing around his jaw. Watched him focus on the sky while she focused on him.

“Aye, ’tis a constellation, and the tip of it is the North Star. If I ken which way is north, I can determine all other cardinal directions, and if I stack my fists like so…”

He pressed her closer still, squishing her, as he reached his fist around her, stacking them one atop the other until he touched the bright star. “I can hypothesize my latitude.”

He glanced down at her, his arms falling, but as they did, coming around her to keep her near.

“Stornoway is about the same distance south of the North Star as we are now, so if I travel due west, I’d hit home.” They held each other’s gaze. She watched his lips. His gaze dipped to hers. “It’s the brightest star. It always guides me on the right path.” But he was looking at her as if she were the right path.

She twisted her finger in his tunic lacing. “What happens when it’s cloudy and stormy, and the sea splashes a mighty tantrum?”

He barked a laugh. Pet back her hair, resting his chin atop her head and severing the connection of their gaze in favor of touch and smell. “Then I’m good and truly foked.”

She giggled at his coarse language and draped her arm across his belly, around his waist.

“Which has happened more than once. One time, I was blown off course in a storm, and I washed ashore on Skye, which is where I received this wee gift, warding off MacNicol’s swords and sending them running.”

He hiked up his sleeve, revealing a welt that ripped a curve from his elbow down his forearm, which had been tattooed into the shape of a serpent’s undulating body.

“They ambushed us whilst we were disoriented. I fought through it. Drove them back. It wasna our fault we’d beached there, and MacNicol to this day does nay forgive me the maiming to his leg, but it was survive or be killed. I had no choice if I wanted to live.”

It dawned on her as his explanation trailed off.

“That’s what ye do, is it nay? Yer tattoos. They conceal yer scars…” Masks.

“Nay conceal. Commemorate. I wear them boldly,” he bit out, as if she’d affronted him. But his face had shuttered. He was going to pull away, as before. Yet just when she sensed him withdrawing, this time, he surprised her, and continued on a deep breath.

“Owen was just six and ten, I two years younger, alone in the world, when we etched our first ones. Niall was there but we knew nothing of him except what we’d been told. Couldna’ even speak yer language yet.”