AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Are you coming my sweet?’ he shouted back at her. ‘Darkness is almost upon us, and the bats will start to fly.’
Morna picked up her skirts and hurried after him.
Chapter Nineteen
Morna’s stomach lurched as she looked out at the ocean in misery. The afternoon sun hitting the surface of the water turned it to undulating silver. It was beautiful, but every sway and rise of the ship was torture.
‘There’s not much chop today, ‘tis a fine day for a sail,’ said Will, looking at her with what she hoped was concern as she clung to the mast. The brightness of the day was reflected in his eyes, lightening them to turquoise and making them less fierce.
‘I feel sick,’ said Morna, swallowing hard to beat back nausea.
‘Aye, your face is the colour of a fish’s belly, alright. The sickness will pass soon. Better you move about, get the feel of the ship, go with it as it moves, instead of standing stiff like that, clinging like a limpet.’
‘It’s alright for you. I hate the sea. It holds bad memories for me.’
‘I know,’ he said in frustration. ‘Come, time to get over this Morna, unless you are afraid, that is.’ He held out his hand, both a challenge and a provocation. Morna glared at him and took hold of it.
‘Come forward to the prow with me,’ he said, dragging her towards the front of the ship where there was less shelter from the buffeting wind and the pound of the waves.
Morna tottered after him, clutching on to him like a vice, veering this way and that as the ship tilted, the blasted thing. ‘It is worse here Will,’ she shouted, bracing herself as best she could as the deck rose and then crashed back down with a creak and a splash.
Will dragged her up to the railing at the prow and placed her hands firmly on it. His arms came around either side of her from behind, and his rough hands came over hers. Morna looked down at his mutilated hand in dismay, the gap where his fingers should be made her heart ache for him. Was there a gap where his heart should be, too?
Will pressed his body against her back, cutting the wind a little and forming a comforting kind of cage. No matter what he said or did, she always felt just a little safer when he was close, bodily that is. Emotionally it was another matter.
‘The wind is picking up,’ he breathed into her ear. ‘Just go with the waves, with the movement of the ship.’
‘Oh,’ squeaked Morna as the swell took them upwards only to come crashing back down. She wanted to show him she was not afraid and so she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Tell me again about Barra?’
‘It will take us most of the day to reach it –a wild, barren place and one that not many are tough enough to survive. Monks made a home there, generations ago, thinking it would bring them closer to God to suffer its privations and, believe me, they have got very close to him indeed. There are few remaining now, and their home is meagre - there is but a simple kirk - but they will offer such shelter as they can to those at the gathering.’
‘Neutral territory?’ said Morna, bracing for impact as another swell hit sideways tilting the ship to an extreme angle.
‘Aye, it has to be, for no clan of the Isles trusts another to be true to its word.’
‘It sounds as though any agreement stands little chance of holding then.’
‘Maybe, but I want to feel the lie of the land, the mood of the Lairds and whether they think the English attack will succeed. There has been talk of a truce between the English King and the Earl of Lancaster. Such a reconciliation will give rise to a huge force that could crush Robert the Bruce, once and for all.’
‘Lancaster and the King may be cousins, but they hate each other.’
‘Aye, but for victory, they are willing to bury their differences. The clans hereabouts are the same, a disreputable bunch, always squabbling like bairns. They won’t waste men fighting for the Bruce if he is about to fall to this latest attack. They will keep their strength for fighting each other.’
‘So, you trust no one and must be cleverer than your enemies.’
‘I must know my enemies, Morna, and to do that you need to look a man in the eye.’
‘Or woman,’ said Morna turning and smiling. She immediately turned away at the smouldering look he gave her. All she was to this man was an alliance.
‘You are not my enemy,’ Will said, pressing his face into the back of her head and placing a kiss just behind her ear, sending a stab of lust between her legs. His breath was hot on her skin, the smell of him tempting and wrong. ‘One day it is my intention to hold sway over all these isles and you,’ he said, nuzzling her neck, ‘shall be queen of it all.’
Suddenly, all her sickness was forgotten, as were the other men all crowded onto the ship with them. There was just Will and the ocean and his voice, so seductive, as he rubbed his face in her hair.
‘My father said the same thing to my mother once, long ago,’ he whispered.
An alliance, not love, not tenderness, Morna told herself.
‘I did not know that, Will. Your name was O’Neill before you took the name Bain, is that not Irish?’
