“Will you ask him?” Meggie pleaded again. Fia scanned her eager face. Meggie’s blond hair shone in the sun, and her lips were pink, her eyes bright. She was beautiful. What man could resist? And Padraig had said it himself—Meggie would make the perfect wife for his son.
Fia turned away, looked out over the sea, her heart in turmoil. “I’ll ask him if I see him,” she said. She planned to avoid him completely.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“’Tis fine weather for sailing, is it not?” Logan asked, walking up to where Dair stood on the cliff, next to the growing cairn. He’d added three rocks today, worked until his aching muscles refused to do more.
He followed Logan’s gaze to where the two Sinclair ships, theLileasand theMaiden,tugged at their anchor chains in the bay below, longing for the open sea.
Dair felt the same pull, but he had not set foot on the deck of a ship since he’d returned. Couldn’t. Logan hated sailing, stayed firmly on land, so Dair didn’t reply to his cousin’s comment.
“Jeannie loved to take a boat out when the sun was warm,” Logan mused. “Remember how she swam, Dair? Like a dolphin, she was. She’d dive off the rocks, swim way down deep.” He looked at the rocks below them, jagged and black. “I keep expecting her to surface by the flat rock, just like she used to, bobbing like a seal. I can’t help but look for her in just that spot.”
Dair knew the place. The rocks formed a warm pool at low tide, a place to step out of the water and dry off in the sun. He’d spent many summer days there with Jeannie. A wave crashed, and a column of white spray shot into the air, like a lass rising from the sea.
“Her governess would scold her when she came home with salt in her hair, but that never stopped her,” Logan went on.
Dair looked down at the tide pool, felt his throat close. There was something in the water, something red.Jeannie had a red gown. It was one of her favorites. . .Dair couldn’t breathe. He saw her, floating below him, her hair a yellow tangle—or was it just kelp? He held his breath, waited for her to turn onto her back, sleek as an otter, and look up.
She’d be screaming, her eyes wide with agony.
Dair tried to force air into his lungs, but it wouldn’t come. He couldn’t take his eyes off the red gown. Shards of light pierced his eyes, dazzled, made him squint. He couldn’t see.Wasit a red gown, or just a trick of sunlight on the water? He felt himself swaying, leaning closer to the edge . . .
Logan’s fists bunched in the back of Dair’s shirt. For an instant, he let Dair hang in his grip, halfway between land and sea, life and death. Dair drew a breath, felt fear.Loganmeansto shovemeoff the cliff.But his cousin yanked him backward instead.
Dair gulped air like a swimmer coming up from too long underwater. He looked at his cousin.
“Careful, cousin, ’tis easy to fall,” Logan said companionably. “’Tis a hot afternoon. Let’s go back and have a drink. I have whisky in my chamber.”
“Aye,” Dair muttered, his heart still pounding, craving the hard bite of the whisky, the burn that proved he still lived, then numbed the pain. He let Logan lead him away from the cliff like an old man. He’d imagined it, the red gown, Jeannie in the water. Yet it seemed so real . . .
“Logan, did you see anything in the water?”
Logan looked at Dair with concern. “Didyousee something?” he asked, his tone kind, careful.
Dair felt bitterness fill his mouth. Hewasmad. He resisted the urge to go back to the edge of the cliff, look again. He felt the skin between his shoulders prickle. He could feel her there, behind him. He rubbed a shaking hand across his mouth. He wanted that drink very badly indeed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Herbs must be gathered in before midsummer,” Moire said as she cut a patch of meadowsweet with her small bone knife.
“The oils are too strong after,” Fia said, remembering Ada’s lessons.
“The spirit within them turns to making fruit.” Moire chuckled. “’Tis the same with folk. Many a spring babe is born from midsummer revels.”
Fia concentrated on cutting long stems of St. John’s wort, the leaf of the blessed. She didn’t want to think about midsummer, or Dair and Meggie. She laid the cuttings in Moire’s willow basket.
“Well?” Moire asked.
“To heal wounds, nervousness, and burns,” Fia said obediently.
Moire sent her a sharp look. “No, not that. Ye’re worrying over something.”
Fia felt her cheeks flush.
“Is it Alasdair Og?” Moire demanded. Fia’s face grew hotter still, and Moire grinned. “Aye, that’s it. Not worry—something deeper and sweeter. And it’s midsummer . . .”
Fia kept her eyes on the plants in her hand. “Do they celebrate midsummer here at Carraig Brigh?”
