Chapter Eighteen
Finlay wanted to smile. He wanted to dance. Chief Anders’s staid daughter, so it seemed, seldom did anything unconsidered or impulsive. That much became obvious when Katrin, towing Finlay behind her, went down to the shore and demanded a boat from the men who were at work there.
They stared at her as if she had grown two heads. “A boat, mistress? Now?”
“Aye, so.” She became impatient, did Finlay’s princess, eager to be obeyed. “Is it so much to ask?”
It appeared so. The men dithered and suggested someone should clear the loan with the chief, which half enraged her. She pointed to a small tub at hand, overturned on the shingle. “That one will do.”
“Aye, mistress.”
The men gazed at Finlay questioningly. “Are ye puttin’ out wi’ Mistress Katrin, master? Mistress, are ye taking the harper?” one asked.
“I am.”
Finlay met the puzzled gazes of the men, keeping a lid on his emotions.
“Pray, right that boat for me and find some oars.”
In the experience of these men, Mistress Katrin rarely gave orders. She gave instructions and suggestions. She made requests using her father’s authority. No one ever questioned that. So now they scrambled to obey.
Though sailing off for no reason with the harper seemed uncommonly strange.
Katrin looked at Finlay. “Can ye row? If no’, I am perfectly capable.”
Aye, so she was, his independent lass.
He said, unable now to hide his amusement, “I can row.”
They had stopped by the keep on their way down from the rowan grove so he could stow his harp and she could change her shoes. Naught else to be done.
The men held the tiny craft for them as they climbed in and pushed them off. Finlay, half bemused by this unexpected turn, took up the oars.
“Where?”
“Ye will no’ harm yer hands wi’ rowing, will ye?” she asked him. “Ye ha’ such wonderful hands.”
Did he?
He held them out for her inspection, one after the other. “Nearly all calluses, as ye can see.”
“Still and all, perhaps we should trade places.”
“Mistress, allow me.”
He wanted this, now that the thing had begun. Wanted to row her out from this selfsame shore, to relive it all again at the stirring of two hearts.
She fell silent. He pulled hard against the inshore combers. All the men stood watching.
He could feel Katrin looking at him. Och, aye, her gaze, steady and serious, inspected him. Hair by hair, so it seemed, and blemish by blemish. Could he tell what she was thinking? Nay. But she wanted this adventure with him. That was enough.
Not till they were far out and tacking to skirt the small isle—the same where the Norsewoman Hulda had once hidden her longboat—did she say, “I wonder how they felt, Bradana and Adair, when they set out for Ireland.”
“Uncertain,” he told her. “She was distraught at leaving the place she loved. To her, Alba was home.”
“She loved him more.”
“She did.”
Their eyes met.
“Can ye imagine such a love?”
He could.
“Och, list to me. To be sure, ye can. Did ye no’ tell tales o’ it?”
She fell silent, the only sound to be heard the swish of water along the hull and the trickle of water from the oars.
“Master Finlay, ha’ ye ever been in love?”
“I have.”
That made her blink at him with those pale eyes of hers. She pondered it, calculating where and when. “Mayhap that is how ye can speak o’ it so convincingly, as ye do.”
“Mayhap it is.”
“Wha’ happened—if ye do no’ mind me asking—to your love?”
“We had to part, the way people do.”
“And it broke your heart?”
It had done that, had shattered him completely. Every single time. But the wheel of the years held hope. Did she not sit here with him as she had twice before?
“I do no’ believe I ha’ ever been in love,” she said, confiding in him as completely as if they were linked at the soul.
“Ye must ha’ been.”
She shook her head. “I ha’ been too busy for all that. Too preoccupied wi’ duty.” She studied him thoughtfully. “Let us drift for a while. Talk.”
They had very nearly lost sight of land. As alone as two people could be.
“Wha’ is it, Katrin? Ye ha’ somewhat on your mind.” Did she begin to remember? More than the details of the tales he’d told. He wanted her to remember.
“We are friends, are we no’, Finlay?”
“I hope so.”
“I would hate to ruin a friendship. Still and all—”
She leaned forward and kissed him. She did it with blind intent and yet somehow also with a simple innocence, diving in to place her mouth over his. Since they sat facing each other, she did not have to reach far.
Sensation poured through him, and a wall of emotions he no longer had any hope of controlling. He had wanted this so long. He had wanted it endlessly.
A thousand images flickered through his mind. Liadan, standing in the sun. Bradana, half starved, crouching beside a meager fire, pulling him into her arms. Darlei, offering her lips to him, silver eyes bright. Hulda, claiming him with equal parts offer and demand.
All of that narrowed to one thing, one point in time. Katrin, here in his arms.
The taste of her was the same—all woman, all strength, all belonging. He could not keep from drawing her closer, of letting his fingers twine into her hair. Drawing her into alignment with him so he could kiss her deeper, and deeper.
Time stood still. Or perhaps, there on the eternal water, it began moving in its own, everlasting rhythm. Finlay did not think. He did not even wonder or hope. He merely felt.
Wild and sweet she was, and warm in his arms. She had not kissed many men, nay—her tentative manner betrayed that. But her lips clove to his and parted. He could as soon stop breathing as keep from diving in.
When he felt her draw away, he let her go at once, dropping his hands to his knees, trying to remind himself: just because he remembered it all, did not mean she would.
Wide-eyed, she gazed at him, emotions flickering like light and shadow, like a reflection from the water.
She had not retreated far, and she must be able to see every detail of him, from the beard that curled along his jaw to the scar on his cheekbone he’d taken when he was ten. Could she see the love?
She blinked at him, long ash-brown lashes sweeping up and down. “I suppose I should apologize for that.”
Robbed of all words, Finlay said nothing. But his soul cried, Kiss me again, alanna.
Her gaze turned rueful. “I hope I ha’ no’ spoiled our friendship, ’Twas impulse, just. Which is odd, for I am a woman but rarely prone to impulse. Something about being out here on the water must ha’ overtaken me. But I hope—”
“Ye ha’ ruined naught.” His voice did not sound like his own. “Nothing ye might do could spoil wha’ lies between us.”
“Nothing?”
He shook his head. Because he wanted so badly to touch her, he took up the oars and began once more to row. Back the way they had come.
She quieted, and yet she did not. So violently did her heart pound, he could see the tremble at her bodice, and color lay high on her cheekbones. “Ye be taking me back?”
“Do ye no’ think I should?”
“We are no’ running awa’ to Ireland, then.”
He stopped rowing. “Would ye run awa’ wi’ me, Katrin? Abandon yer father and yer home and all yer duties? Live the life o’ a wandering bard’s wife, carrying my harp behind me?”
“Wife?” Their eyes met again, near blinding him.
“Wha’ else?”
The light and darkness flickered in her eyes more brightly. “Ye would trust me to carry Brada?”
He smiled despite himself. “I would.”
“’Tis a rare compliment, that. And I am…tempted.”
Was she?
He wanted to say, Come wi’ me and I will hold ye. Cherish ye. Worship ye with my heart and my body, and my soul. With every bit o’ me that has ever been or ever will be.
But he could say none of that. Instead he told her, “But ye canna come awa’ wi’ me.”
“I do no’ suppose I can. Duties, as ye say. I belong here.” She made an effort to speak lightly as if striving to relegate what had just happened between them to unimportance. “I could no’ break my father’s heart.”
“To be sure, no.”
“And—and a wandering bard canna stay at one hall forever.”
Finlay pulled on the oars. “Else, he would no’ be a wandering bard.”
Dare he tell her he would give up all that for her? Put down roots in the rocky soil. Sacrifice whatever she asked. Change his way of life.
He had been wandering their world, aye, for but one reason—to find her. Having done so, why would he stir?
Lest she bade him.
She it was who must choose. Who must remember.
He rowed slowly and steadily, the way he’d once rowed to Erin, and back again to fight for Alba. As he’d once rowed his princess, showing her the place he loved. He rowed them back from the depths of time.
The people on the shore pretended not to watch. But they scrambled when the wee boat came in, laid hands on the hull and drew them onto the shingle.
An older fellow, mayhap one of her father’s friends, was there and gazed at Katrin in concern.
“Mistress, are ye quite well?”
“Aye, so.” She leaped from the boat with alacrity. “I wanted only to show the master harper our holding fro’ the sea. Before he moves on fro’ us, I mean.”
“Aye, so.” The man looked uncertain.
“Come, master harper,” she called to Finlay. “I do no’ doubt we shall be late for supper.”
He followed her, as he had forever vowed to do.