Chapter One
What do you mean you wish to see the Seal Isles?”
Duncan MacKenzie, the indomitable Black Stag of Kintail, slapped down his ale cup and stared across the well-laden high table
at his eldest daughter, Lady Arabella. His good humor of a moment before vanished as he narrowed his eyes on her, his gaze
piercing.
Arabella struggled for composure. Years of doing so helped her not to squirm. But she wasn’t sure she could keep her cheeks
from flaming. Already the back of her neck burned as if it’d caught fire.
So she moistened her lips and tried to pretend her father wasn’t pinning her with a look that said he could see right into
her soul, maybe even knew how her belly churned and that her palms were damp.
Or that all her hopes and dreams hung on this moment.
“Well?” He raised one dark brow.
Arabella plucked at a thread on her sleeve, then, realizing what she was doing, stopped at once. She looked up, somehow resisting
the urge to slip a finger beneath the neckline of her gown or perhaps even loosen her bodice ties. Faith, but she needed air.
Her chest felt so constricted, she could hardly draw a breath.
She did manage to hold her father’s stare. Hot and bold MacKenzie blood flowed in her veins, too. And even if she’d spent
her life quashing any urges to heed her clan’s more passionate nature, this was one time she meant to do her name proud.
So she angled her chin and firmed her jaw with just a touch of stubbornness.
“You heard what I said.” She spoke as calmly as she could, her daring making her heart skitter. “The seals . . .”
She let the words tail off, the excuse sounding ridiculous even to her own ears.
Her father huffed, clearly agreeing.
“We’ve plenty of such beasties in our own waters.” He made a dismissive gesture, his tone final. “You’ve no need to journey
to the ends of nowhere to see them.”
At once, a deafening silence fell around the hall’s torch-lit dais. Somewhere a castle dog cracked a bone,his gnawing all
the more loud for the sudden quiet. Everywhere kinsmen and friends swiveled heads in their puissant chieftain’s direction,
though some discreetly glanced aside. Whatever their reaction, no one appeared surprised by the outburst. Those who called
Eilean Creag their home were well used to his occasional bouts of temper.
“If it is such creatures you wish to study, I saw one just yestere’en.” He sat back in his carved oaken laird’s chair, looking
pleased. “A fine dog seal sunning himself on a rock down by the boat strand.”
Arabella doubted every word. She did tighten her fingers on the handle of her spoon.
This wasn’t about seals and she suspected her father knew it.
His continued stare, narrow-eyed and penetrating, was more than proof.
Arabella started to lower her own gaze, but caught herself and frowned instead. And rather than returning her attention to
her wooden bowl of slaked oats as she would have done perhaps even just a few days ago, she sat up straighter and squared
her shoulders.
She only hoped that no one else heard the wild thundering of her heart.
It wasn’t every day that she dared defy her fierce-eyed, hot-tempered father.
Indeed, this was the first time she meant to try.
Her contentment in life — she couldn’t bring herself to use the word happiness — depended on her being strong.
Firm, resolute, and unbending.
“I’m not interested in Kintail seals, Father.” She cleared her throat, careful to keep her chin raised. “And there is a need. Besides that, I want to make this journey. The Seal Isles are mine now. You gave them to me.”
“I added them to your bride price!”
“Which makes them my own.” She persisted, unable to stop. “It’s only natural I should wish to see them. I can make a halt
at the Isle of Doon on the way, bringing your felicitations to your friends the MacLeans and the cailleach, Devorgilla. You can’t deny that they would welcome me. After that, I could perhaps call at —”
“Ho! What’s this?” Her father’s gaze snapped to a quiet, scar-faced man half-hidden in shadow at the end of the table. “Can
it be a certain long-nosed loon of a Sassunach has been putting such mummery in your head?”
Arabella bit her lip, not about to admit that her head had been fine until a courier had arrived from her younger sister’s
home a few days before, announcing that Gelis had at last quickened with child.
A pang shot through her again, remembering. Hot, sharp, and twisting, her bitterness wound tight. Just recalling how the messenger’s
eyes had danced with merriment as he’d shared the long-awaited news had upturned her world.
It’d been too much.
The whole sad truth of the empty days stretching before her had come crashing down around her like so much hurled and shattered
crockery.
She refused to think about the cold nights, equally empty and warmed only by the peats tossed on the hearth fire and the snoring,
furry bulk of whichever of her father’s dogs chose to scramble onto her bed of an e’en.
Setting down her spoon, she fisted her hands against the cool linen of the table covering and swallowed against the heat in
her throat.
To be sure, she loved her sister dearly. She certainly begrudged her naught. But her heart wept upon the surety that such
joyous tidings would likely never be her own.
“Faugh!” Her father’s deep voice boomed again. “Whoe’er heard of a lassie wanting to sail clear to the edge of the sea? ’Tis
beyond —”
“Hush, you, Duncan. . . .” Stepping up to the high table, her mother, Lady Linnet, placed a warning hand on his shoulder.
“Bluster is —”
“The only way I ken to deal with such foolery!” Her father frowned up at his wife and, for a telling moment, all the fury
drained from his face.
The mirror image of Gelis, only older, the lady Linnet flicked back her hip-length, red-gold braid and leaned down to circle
loving arms around her husband’s broad shoulders. Blessed with the sight — another gift she shared with her youngest daughter
— Lady Linnet’s ability to soothe and banish her husband’s worst moods wasn’t something Arabella needed to see at the moment.
The obvious love between the two only served to remind her of the intimacies she’d never know.
Burning to call such closeness her own, she winced at the sudden piercing image of herself as a withered, spindle-legged crone
humbly serving wine and sweetmeats to her parents and her sister and her husband as they reposed before her, supine on cushioned
bedding and oblivious to aught but their blazing passion.
Arabella frowned and blinked back the dastardly heat pricking her eyes.
Her mother’s voice, clearly admonishing her father, helped to banish the disturbing vision. “Ach, Duncan.” She smoothed a
hand through his thick, shoulder- length black hair, sleek as Arabella’s own and scarce touched by but a few strands of glistening
silver. “Perhaps you should —”
“Pshaw!” He made a derisive sound, breaking free of her embrace. “Dinna tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I’d rather
hear what that meddling lout who calls himself a friend has —”
“Uncle Marmaduke has nothing to do with it.” Arabella spoke before he could finish. “He is a better friend to you than you
could wish. Though he did mention that he’s here because a south-bound trading ship — ”
“A vessel said to be captained by an Orkneyman you know and trust.” Her uncle sipped slowly from his ale cup, his calm chasing
her fears and giving her hope. “Word is that the trader is large enough to take on your girl and an escort in all comfort.”
“Hah! So speaks a meddler!” Her father smacked his hand on the table. “Did I no’ just say you were the cause of this?” He
roared the words, glaring round. “Aye, there’s a merchant ship set to call at Kyleakin. Could be, the captain is known to
me. I ken most traders who ply these waters!”
“And I ken when you are about to make a bleeding arse of yourself.” Sir Marmaduke set down his empty ale cup and leaned back in his
chair, arms casually folded. “A pity you do not know when to heed those who care about you.”
Duncan MacKenzie scowled at him. “And I say ’tis a greater pity that you dinna ken when to hold your flapping tongue!”
The words spoken, he flashed another look at Arabella. “If you’re of a mind, I’ll take you to see what wares the merchant
ship carries. There are sure to be bolts of fine cloth and baubles, perhaps a few exquisite rarities. Maybe even a gem-set
comb for your shiny black tresses.”
Pausing, he raised a wagging finger. “But know this, when the ship sails away, you will no’ be onboard!”
Arabella struggled against tightening her lips.
The last thing she wanted was to look like a shrew.
Even so, she couldn’t help feeling a spurt of annoyance. “I have coffers filled with raiments and I’ve more jewels than I
can wear in a lifetime. There is little of interest such a ship can offer me. Not in way of the goods it carries.”
She took a deep breath, knowing she needed to speak her heart. “What I want is an adventure.”
“A what?” Her father’s brows shot higher than she’d ever seen.
He also leapt to his feet, almost toppling his chair in his fury.
Out in the main hall, several of his men guffawed. On the dais, one or two coughed. And even the castle dogs eyed him curiously,
their canine eyes full of reproach.
Duncan MacKenzie’s scowl turned fierce.
“A little time away from here is all I ask.” Arabella ignored them all. “I’ve grown weary of waiting for another suitor to
make his bid. The last one who dared approached you over a year ago and —”
“The bastard was a MacLeod!” Her father’s face ran purple. “Dinna tell me you’d have gone happily to the bed of a sprig of
that ilk! We’ve clashed with their fork-tongued, cloven-footed kind since before the first lick o’ dew touched a sprig of
heather!”
“Then what of the Clan Ranald heir who came before him?” Arabella uncurled her fists, no longer caring if anyone saw how her
hands trembled. “You can’t deny you’ve called the MacDonalds good allies and friends.”
Her father spluttered, frowning.