‘Answer me, please, lass,’ he said with growing confusion.
‘Oh, Bryce. Everything is so uncertain. But you must trust me and let me go. The tide….’
He grabbed her arm. ‘How can you go after last night and what we shared? Did it mean nothing to you?’
‘It meant everything, which is why I must go, for your sake.’ Maren tugged her arm away.
‘I cannot let you leave, and Maren, it is not because I own you. How can I? How can any man own someone as wild and free as you? I want you to stay because I love you, secrets, lies and all. I love you, lass, and I wish I could say it somewhere other than this stinking wharf full of noise and filth. I wish I could say it in a field full of flowers. But it seems we have no time, and I must say what I feel in my heart, or it will burst. I think you care for me, too.’
‘It matters not, for we are doomed, Bryce,’ she replied. ‘What can I ever be to you other than a plaything, no matter that my heart beats for you, and only you, now?’
‘Does it, truly?’ he said, with the tiniest spark of hope.
‘Aye,’ she nodded. ‘I wish it did not, for then my path would be easier.’
‘Then be not my plaything. Be my wife. Please, Maren.’
Bryce got down on one knee in the filth of the wharf, feeling the cold of the cobbles against his knee. This was not how he had imagined declaring his love for someone. ‘We will wed in a church with all the proper legalities this time. I will cherish you and never play you false, lass, I swear. Say, yes, for I cannot live without you.’
Maren looked horrified. She glanced back at the ship. The sailor was frantically beckoning her aboard as the sails swelled in the wind.
‘Oh, get up off your knees, you fool,’ she said. ‘I am sailing on that ship, and if you wish to come with me, I will allow it.’
Bryce stood up and grabbed her hands. ‘Is that a yes to my proposal?’
‘I suppose it is, but once we are aboard and you hear the truth of my life, you might want to take it back.’
‘Never.’
‘Come then. Let us make haste, else we will have to swim to Durness,’ she said with a little smile.
‘You are such a romantic, Maren,’ said Bryce. ‘One minute, I am down on my knee, offering my hand. The next, you are dragging me onto a ship without so much as a by your leave.’
‘What of it?’ she said with a shrug. ‘Do you want a blushing fool for a wife? I am what I am, and I will not change.’
‘No. I suppose not.’ Bryce paused for a moment. ‘Are you leading me to my doom, Maren?’
‘No, never, but I might be going to mine.’ She took his hand and led him up the gangplank.
***
The ship was well out to sea when Bryce returned to its prow. He had insisted on talking to the captain and had been gone a while. Now there was a smug smile pasted on his face. It made him undeniably handsome. How could she ever hold this man, looking the way he did? But she wanted to, so very much.
‘I have secured us a cabin – the captain’s, in fact,’ Bryce declared. ‘It is not much, but better than sleeping in the bilge.’
He leaned in to kiss her, but Maren leapt back. She felt too raw to melt into his arms and give all of herself again. Each time she lay with Bryce, she got a little bit weaker, softer, and more womanly. And where she was going, that would not do at all.
‘What say you, we get out of this wind and go below?’ said Bryce with a gentle smile.
‘For what?’
His smile faded. ‘For the truth to be told between us.’
Maren’s heart lurched, but she nodded and let him lead her below. She could feel the crew’s eyes on them. Surely they must think she was his drab. They must think ill of her. What did it matter now?
When they reached the captain’s cabin, it was a crashing disappointment - small, low-ceilinged and cramped, with a lingering odour of mildew, but there was a bed, a table and a small window, which gave a view of the wind-chopped Moray Firth. It made Maren feel less trapped. Bryce leaned against it and, without looking at her, he said, ‘Tell me about your family, lass. Leave nothing out. Tell me truly, Maren. What were you before you came to Balloch?’
‘The worst of people,’ she replied.
