Page 48 of Sins of the Highlander

“Ye are no’ to blame,” she said with conviction.

He didn’t have the heart to contradict her, but he didn’t believe it for a moment. “After all that, I’m sure ye believe me a madman now.”

“’Tis no’ madness to weep for someone ye loved.” She shook her head. “If ye had no tears, I’d think ye less a man. Never because of them.”

“Ye’re a strange lass, Elspeth Stewart.”

“And ye’re a silver-tongued demon.” She laughed, obviously trying to lighten his mood. “Dinna think to turn my head with such compliments.”

He smiled at her, confused but strangely comforted. He still grieved for Fiona, but the serrated edge of unexpressed mourning and guilt that threatened to send him spiraling into insanity was gone.

Elspeth returned his smile. He shook his head in wonderment. He’d stolen her from the altar, taken her prisoner, and tormented her body with a wicked lover’s touch. And here she was giving him comfort. If he lived to be a hundred, he’d never understand what went on in a woman’s head.

Then while he was watching her, her eyes glazed over, and she stared sightlessly over his shoulder.

“Elspeth?”

She gave no sign that she’d heard him.

He let go of the tiller and grasped both her shoulders, but she continued to stare unblinking. He gave her a little shake. She looked at his face then, but he sensed no recognition in her eyes.

“The each uisge comes, reaching up from the depths to snag his bride,” she said in a voice devoid of all expression. “And a bolt from the dark finds its mark.”

“Elspeth!”

Then he was nearly knocked off his feet, thrown forward as the boat stopped dead in the water.

Chapter 16

“What is it?” Angus cried from the cabin. “What’s happened?”

Rob heard him scrambling, but a man as large as Angus didn’t move very quickly, even at the best of times. Wakened from a sound sleep, he was like a badger in winter, surly and disoriented, as he banged around in the small space.

“If ye’ve run my boat aground, Robbie, I’ll have your hide!”

“No, we’re still in the central channel, but—” Then Rob saw it, the line stretched across the expanse of the water reaching from one shoreline to the other. The long-necked prow of the boat was caught on it, and the stern threatened to come about suddenly.

He’d kept Elspeth from falling when they stopped suddenly, but he released her now and grabbed up the tiller again to right the vessel with the prevailing current. He wished he could have kept hold of her, because she had the dazed expression of a person who isn’t seeing clearly. Her otherworldly pronouncements still tied his gut in knots.

“Elspeth, are ye sound, lass?”

She gave herself a small shake and blinked. Then she plopped down on the bench seat as if her legs would no longer support her. Her hands trembled in her lap.

“I’m fine. What’s happened?” Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. I had a…Did I say something?”

“Aye, a daft bit about the each uisge, but we’ve no’ run afoul of the water horse, I’m thinking. We ran into a snare of sorts.” Then he realized the dark shape he’d taken for a small island was moving toward them.

Elspeth followed the direction of his gaze. “’Tis Lachlan,” she said woodenly. “He’s come for me.”

“Well, I’m no’ of a mind to let him have ye.”

“After what ye’ve told me, I find myself grateful,” she said.

The raft bore down on them. One of the men on board it shouted to another as they used the line to haul themselves across the water. Rob cursed himself for a half-wit. If he’d been on the watch instead of blubbering in Elspeth’s arms, he’d have spotted them lurking there in the dark, like a spider waiting for a fly to be caught in its web.

Angus was trying to shove the line down on the prow. If the rope fell beneath the hull, they might sail over it. But the curved neck of Angus’s boat was carved with fanciful beasts to ward off the odd water horse, and the line must have caught on one. The weight of the craft and the strength of the current made freeing the vessel difficult.

Rob realized he’d left his knives sticking in the boat’s neck. Cutting the line would serve just as well.