Bride Of The Isle. Margo Maguire
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wind took his breath away, whipped his hair to a tangled mess and pasted his clothes to his long, muscular frame.
“That’s a Scotswoman you brought with ye, eh, m’lord?” the master asked.
Adam raised an eyebrow at the question, but did not begrudge the man an answer. He’d been the skilled master of the harbor for many years, always loyal and reliable. “She is,” he replied simply.
The man pursed his lips and thought a moment before speaking again. “D’ye think the island people will take to her, m’lord?”
“’Tis no matter. The lady is my guest,” Adam said, raising his voice to carry over the wind. “She will be up at the castle for the length of her visit. I don’t expect the island people will be bothered by her.”
Adam thought the master made a sound deep in his throat, but could not be sure, because the man turned away just then and began to shout orders to his oarsmen. Adam dreaded turning to look at Cristiane, certain that he would find her cowering in the hull of the ship, green to her gills.
Instead, he watched the sky as several large brown skuas rode the wind, impervious to the impending storm. They screeched as they flew, then dived into the waves or at the smaller gulls, each one securing a meal. Adam watched them for a long moment, putting off the time when he’d have to go and see to Lady Cristiane.
An unfamiliar, musical sound made him turn to the hull of the ship, and he discovered Cristiane standing at the port side, pointing up at the flying birds. She laughed as she watched them dance across the sky, and the color in her fair cheeks was good.
The wind blew her skirts up above her ankles, and she absently pushed them down with one hand. Adam was painfully aware of what lay beneath those skirts, and he desperately hoped that the wind became no fiercer. Otherwise, Cristiane would most certainly be embarrassed.
And Adam would have to throw each and every man who saw her overboard.
He crossed to her and gripped her arm more fiercely than he intended. “The seas are rough, Lady Cristiane,” he said. “’Tis best if you take a seat.”
“Ach, but—”
“’Tis true, m’lady,” the master shouted from his post at the bow. “Can’t have no accidents on m’ ship, now!”
Cristiane complied with both men’s wishes, finding a seat away from the oarsmen. Adam sat down beside her, oddly disturbed by her ease in the circumstances. He should have been relieved that she was not puking over the side, yet her exhilaration in the face of the wind and high seas was confusing. Never had he known a woman so comfortable with the elements.
“’Tis wonderful, is it na, my lord?”
“What? The storm?”
“Aye! And the bonniest great skuas I’ve ever seen.” Cristiane laughed again. “They’re like the ruddy kings of the sky—diving for food, but stealing the prey from smaller birds!”
Adam had to smile at her likening the big gulls to a king. She was more accurate than she knew.
“I’m glad ’tis so…so alive for the crossing,” she said, spreading her arms wide. “Aught else, and ’twould have been a dull ride!”
Something inside Adam made him want to shake some sense into her. Didn’t the foolish girl understand there was danger here? That the weather could turn frightful in an instant, with dangerous lightning and torrents of rain?
’Twas clear he’d have to look out for her while she remained on Bitterlee. She didn’t have the sense God gave a…a skua.
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