Chapter 17
Lochranza gazed in dismay at the single-storey riverside house.
‘This is not what I was expecting.’
Captain Crabbe shrugged. ‘This is the place I was told to bring you.’
Far from grand, the house looked as though it had been built by its owner from whatever materials had come to hand. It had a single door and a window each side.
The riverboat’s paddles trembled to a halt, the water swirling in ripples as it came alongside what looked like a newly built landing stage.
The house had a reasonably sized veranda running along its river frontage and handsome pillars sinking down into the water.
Captain Crabbe offered a hand, but she declined.
She looked towards the house. Was Ethan inside waiting for her?
Her thoughts turned to how he might greet her; relieved of course that she’d got out of there before the battle proper really started.
She ran swiftly towards the house and the figure standing out in front on the veranda, her hair streaming out behind her.
‘Ethan?’
Her voice was snatched by the warm breeze and tossed away. Leaves on the trees fluttered too as though laughing, as though they knew what was to come next.
There was no sign of anyone else coming out of the house except the man already there. She saw him step forward as she approached, then halt when she halted at the bottom of a set of three wooden steps.
For a fleeting moment, she wondered if Captain Crabbe, far from being her rescuer, had merely snatched her person in order to sell her on.
‘Is my fiancé not here? Lord Ethan MacKinnon. Is he not here?’ she repeated, her frown undiminished when the man on the veranda failed to answer.
On stepping closer, his features became more distinct.
Grey-haired, his face should merely have been criss-crossed with the wrinkles of time, instead of which it was a patchwork of coffee brown and white.
She’d never seen skin like it and she wondered whether he’d been born that way. He must have seen her consternation.
‘Too long before the mast when I was younger. The sun burned my face, destroyed patches of skin. And now…’ He smiled. ‘I look like a piebald horse, a bit like the ones the gypsies favour.’
The warm breeze turned cold. Where was Ethan?
The man seemed disconcerted on receiving only a curt nod. A sad look came to his eyes and for a moment she thought he was going to open his mouth and commend himself. Something held him back.
Aware that Captain Crabbe had followed and was standing a few feet behind her gave her courage.
‘I take it that’s not your fiancé,’ she heard him say.
‘No,’ she said softly. ‘He is not.’
‘If you go into the house, I can come in with you if you like,’ he said. He moved closer until she could smell him and feel the heat of his body behind her.
‘No. I can cope.’
‘Come inside,’ said the man.
She hesitated before reminding herself that this was the man who had paid Captain Crabbe to rescue her. How had he known her? How had he known she needed rescuing and why did such a sombrely dressed man have the sum to back Crabbe’s bid for her at auction?
The interior of the house smelled of linseed oil and mint. Dried herbs had been hung between the overhead beams of rough-cut wood. There was a small range, comfortable but simple furniture and a bright copper kettle hanging from a trivet beside the fireplace.
The man indicated that she take a chair. She did so gladly, desperate to find out whether she was still in danger or not.
She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her look intense.
‘I expected to meet my fiancé here. He paid that man outside to rescue me.’
The man shook his head. ‘I paid that man to rescue you.’
She glanced around her but stopped herself from saying he didn’t look like a man who could afford to do that.
She frowned. ‘But why?’
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’
Something about his expression stirred her. Something about his voice too, but the memory she tried to grasp was as fragile as a feather.
‘I don’t know.’
He looked down at his hands – strong hands with square fingertips, calluses and scratched knuckles. He shook his head. ‘It’s understandable. You were young and the circumstances…’ He paused. ‘The circumstances were regrettable.’
Something shifted in her mind. It was like music, as though a high note had been struck and had suddenly become audible.
She frowned. ‘I know you?’
She couldn’t help sounding questioning. There was something familiar, but it would not form itself.
‘I’m Captain Joseph O’Neill. It was me who took you to England all those years ago when you were a child.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t remember.’
He nodded. ‘You will in the fullness of time. You didn’t speak until we landed in England.’
Her whole body seemed jolted by his comment.
‘The dog. He was brown and white and frightened. And he was hiding. We consoled each other!’
The smoke, the darkness, the sea journey. Not until she had made friends with the dog had she returned from the terrible place her mind had been all those years ago.
O’Neill closed his eyes. ‘Yes,’ he sounded with thankful calm. ‘You made friends with a dog.’
Lochranza felt a jolt of something that felt like regret and terrible loss. Any memory she could resurrect from her lost childhood was to be welcomed, but when one’s only memory was a dog… well, it was disappointing.
She looked up on sensing the captain’s eyes boring into her.
‘You look disappointed.’
She shrugged in an off-handed fashion. ‘Being only to remember a dog is no memory at all.’
‘It’s a start. Just bear in mind that some memories can destroy us and are best forgotten.’
‘You took me to England.’
Folding his hands in front of him, he studied his fingertips, intermittently raising each one in turn in what seemed like a strict sequence.
‘I did take you to England. I was glad to do so.’
‘And before that? What was my childhood like? Why wasn’t I left to live with the rest of the family?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I really couldn’t say.’
Her cheeks felt hot, and the beginning of a headache thudded in her temples. ‘You don’t want to say.’
‘You must forgive me,’ he said apologetically whilst wrapping his blanket more securely about him. ‘I am an old man and getting older. I must be on my way home. I feel a chill around my shoulders and am in need of my hearth and the warmth of my bed.’
‘This cabin is not yours?’
He shook his head. ‘No. It is not.’
Was that pity she saw in his face or was it the look of someone who didn’t want her to remember, who wanted to keep her past, her present and her future purely to himself?