However, scanning the sea from his vantage point, he saw no sign of his ship. Not even a whiff of her smoke on the horizon.
Well, she would return. If not today, then certainly by tomorrow. Or, if the ship had suffered damage in the storm, Captain Woodbury would send a rescue party to collect them.
Their own island—Canna, Isolde had called it—showed signs of having had significantly more inhabitants in the past. Along the eastern edge, several houses clustered around a sheltered bay, but even at a distance, their glassless windows and crumbling roof lines testified to their abandoned state.
There were sheep, however, looking uncannily like puffy white clouds scudding across themachair. The keepers of the isle should be returning soon, he supposed. Like Tristan and Isolde, the storm had probably caught the caretakers off-guard and forced them to seek a sheltered harbor on the mainland until it passed.
He took a roundabout path back to the house, walking the length of the white sand beach where he and Isolde had washed up. Despite his exertions, the vibrating energy in his chest had not abated.
La bramosia. The desperate yearning still wracked him.
Fortunately, the storm had deposited several large tree trunks on the sand, many of which did not appear too waterlogged.
Well, if his ship was delayed in returning, the driftwood would provide another source of fuel for the fire. And he had a prodigious amount of energy to burn and no fencing master handy to assist him in expending it. In his current state, tree limbs would weigh but a lark’s feather.
Dragging a long log behind him, Tristan returned to the house. From there, it was a simple matter to locate an axe and then a whetstone to sharpen its edge. The chickens clucked and pecked around him as he worked.
Within half an hour, the sounds of wood chopping echoed off the stone walls of the house and courtyard.
A quarter-hour later, he shed his coat. A short while after that, he tugged off his shirt and used it to mop the sweat from his brow before tossing it atop his coat.
He turned back to the axe and the task before him.
Isolde awoke tothe sound of an axe splitting wood and bright sun peeking through the bed curtains.
Frowning, she turned over, feeling the cold mattress where her husband had been.
Memories trickled in.
Tristan’s body wrapped around her own, holding her tightly against his chest.
That had been . . . lovely.
She had sensed him waking up, and so she had held still, terrified to break the spell.
And then the feel of his lips at her nape.
Gooseflesh pebbled her arms just recalling the moment.
A rather embarrassing part of her hoped he would continue his caresses.
Instead, he had retreated and left the room.
She had waited, hoping for his return, but had fallen asleep instead.
Throwing off the coverlet, she pushed back the heavy drapes and padded over to the window, looking down at the wee courtyard between the cold larder and the series of outbuildings.
Mmm.
Tristan stood in the center dressed only in trousers, braces, and boots—acres of tanned Mediterranean skin gleaming in the daylight—chopping at what appeared to be driftwood.
Och, ’twas a sight as bonnie as the sunshine.
Isolde felt immensely cheered.
Dressing quickly, she darted down the stairs and into the cold larder, peering through the window there.
Aye.
