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She remembered her desperation when she had come across him with her brother Cormac after Bannockburn was all over. The Scots army had won, though it was at great cost, the field soaked red with the blood of slain Scots fighters. Will had been caught on the wrong side of that battle, accused of fighting for the English and condemned to die. Even now, Morna did not know the truth of it. Was he a heartless traitor or a man who had chosen a side at the last moment, in a surge of patriotism? Either way, just before an axe took his head, she had rushed in and pleaded for his release. Her brothers, Cormac and Lyall, had King Robert’s trust, and they wielded considerable power in the Highlands, and so Will had been set free.
Now here he was, not even deigning to look in her direction.
Suddenly loud shouting and cursing came from the hatch and a man emerged from it with a sword tip pressed to his neck. Waldrick followed and cuffed the man across the back of the head with his hilt, sending him sprawling across the deck.
‘Found this wretch hiding below,’ he said. ‘Must have snuck aboard in all the chaos.’
‘More fool him, for now, he must sing his song to us,’ said Will. He turned to Morna. ‘He will tell me where they were taking you and for what purpose.’ Their eyes locked, Will’s as blue and angry as the surging waves all around them.
‘Laird, laird,’ shouted one of the men, smiling and pointing towards the prow of the ship.
Morna squinted into the wind. A long way off, a soaring cliff was visible through the rain and, clinging to its edge, as if it grew out of the rock beneath it, was the gloomy hulk of a castle. She could feel Will’s eyes on her, penetrating, watchful.
‘What is that place?’ she ventured.
‘Fitheach Castle, stronghold of Clan Bain. It is my home and, for miles around, this is my land. It all belongs to me now, as does everything on it.’
Did he mean her as well? Morna risked a glance at him. ‘I thank you for saving me if indeed that is what you have done?’ She should not voice her thoughts aloud to him, but she was alone and miles from home with a cold stranger, and she needed some reassurance so that her thumping heart would be still.
‘Do not be fearful. Your ordeal is over. You are safe now, with me, as my guest. This is my land, my clan and I hold sway here. Nothing can touch you,’ he said, taking hold of her arm to steady her as the ship swung around towards the shoreline. ‘You’ve no reason to fear me, unless you give me one, that is.’
There was something about his words which made her heart jump in her breast.
Morna shook his arm away. ‘I never thought I’d see you again, William O’Neill.’
His dark brows drew together, and he narrowed his eyes.
‘William O’Neill is dead,’ he said, in a voice like ice. ‘Forget him, for he died a long time ago. I am a Bain now, to the marrow of my bones.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will soon enough and when we have washed the sea off you, Morna Buchanan, you will tell me what has been done to you and by whose hand.’
Chapter Four
As the ship drew closer to shore, Morna looked up at the vast cliffs. Low cloud had swept in, swallowing the castle in white. A colony of seabirds rose from a large rock at the centre of a gently curving bay which formed a natural harbour of sorts. As they sailed past, the bitter smell of their droppings caught the back of her throat, making her nausea rise again, but at least it was calmer now they were beyond the worst of the waves.
The men anchored the ship against a rocky outcrop reaching out from the cliffs like a welcoming hand. Will did not meet her eye as he helped her scrabble out of the ship and onto dry land. Morna clung on tightly as he guided her towards the shoreline. It was hard going, her wet dress clinging heavily to her legs and the rocks treacherously studded with jagged barnacles and limpets. At one point she stumbled and, with a sigh of impatience, Will picked her up and carried her. Up close, he was even more intimidating, and so she stayed silent.
Morna risked a glance up at him to see him staring down at her. Will’s eyes were a deep blue, vivid in a face tanned to the pale gold of honey, and fringed with dark lashes, at odds with his dark blonde hair. The scar, a half-moon, starting at his temple and ending at the top of his cheek, just made those eyes more compelling.
‘You are exhausted,’ he said.
Morna swallowed hard. ‘So would you be if you had been locked in a crate for a day and a night, thinking you were going to die.’
‘Trust me, whoever did that to you will suffer worse,’ he said, and she believed him.
They rounded a towering rock face, and Morna gasped. Before her was the gaping maw of a cave. Water flooded in with a rushing sound and sucked back out again, the constant movement having worn the walls smooth over time. The light faded into its black throat, and Morna shivered. The suffocating darkness had the look of a tomb. She wanted to scream and run, but Will strode onwards, leaping up and down the rocks at the cave’s edge as nimbly as a goat. It was as if she weighed nothing at all.
‘Where are we going?’ she said.
‘To the castle, where you can get warm, but first, we climb,’ he said, depositing her on the ground.
‘Climb?’
‘Aye, this is the quickest way, up through the cave. Can you walk?’
Morna nodded. The other men started to file past them with lit torches, handing one to Will, who took her hand, shaking with cold, and pulled her along behind him.
