Chapter 1
Invertavey, Scottish Highlands, July 1819
For Diarmid Mactavish, Laird of Invertavey, a gallop along Canmara Beach was his usual way to start the day. Less usual was the discovery of two waterlogged bodies washed up on the silver sands above the high tide mark.
“What the devil,” he muttered under his breath, spurring his white mare Sigurn down the dunes so fast that the sand flew up behind them.
After last night’s wild storm, debris littered the beach, including, now he looked, what appeared to be the remnants of a wooden boat. Amongst the chaos, the two motionless bodies were a cruel reminder of the dangerous waters around Scotland’s west coast. Stark proof of that lay in Invertavey’s small, pretty graveyard which contained too many headstones dedicated to sailors known only unto God.
Diarmid drew Sigurn to a rearing halt near the first body, an old, bearded man whose eyes opened milky onto the sky. He flung himself from the saddle and kneeled at the man’s side, although it was obvious the stranger was past saving. With regret for the curtailed life and what must have been a terrifying death, he reached across to close the old man’s eyes.
The other body sprawled on the wet sand about ten yards away. When Diarmid realized it was a fair-haired woman, horror cramped his heart.
Most of the dead washed up on this curve of beach were sailors or fishermen. It was rare to bury a female, although in his childhood, a passenger ship had foundered on a reef near Banory Head, with the loss of twenty-eight people, including women and children. He’d been an eight-year-old boy when the Catriona Rose went down, and he still recalled the sad procession as the crofters carried the victims through the dunes to the village.
When he rose and crossed to the lady, his regret became even more piercing. The woman was young, not much more than a wee lassie. Even lying still and pale on the sand, Diarmid could see that she’d been pretty.
It shouldn’t matter what she looked like. A life lost was a life lost. But as he stared down into her alabaster face with its straight, narrow nose and piquant pointed chin, he couldn’t help grieving that he’d never see her eyes flash or that beguiling mouth curve in a smile.
He came down on his heels beside her, noting the plain, good-quality clothes, even in their sandy, soaked state. The old man was dressed like a crofter. This woman was dressed like a lady.
What had made these two people set out on unreliable waters when bad weather had been a constant the last weeks? Had anyone else drowned with them? Where had they embarked? Where were they going?
Likely he’d never find out, unless family or friends managed to track the voyage to this isolated corner of Scotland. The woman looked like she came from money, so odds were someone would seek news of her fate. Beautiful women from prosperous backgrounds were rarely permitted to disappear without a trace.
The girl’s eyes were closed. In a useless gesture of sympathy, Diarmid lifted one of the slender hands that lay across her chest.
Hell…
She wore saturated gloves of lavender kid, but even through the damp material, he felt the pliability of living flesh. Now he looked more closely, her chest rose and fell with faint breath.
By God, this lady wasn’t dead after all. He hauled her unresisting body up and began to pat her pallid cheeks and rub her hands. For what felt like an eon, there was no reaction. Then his heart faltered to a relieved stop as he heard her breath catch.
How the devil had the lassie survived a night outside in these temperatures? The wet sand under his knees was freezing, and the wind whipped about his ears as a reminder of last night’s raging storm.
She was icy cold, and if he didn’t get her back to his house, the air would finish what the sea had started. It might be midsummer, but this was the Highlands, and the water she’d come out of wasn’t much above freezing.
“Miss?” He rubbed his hands over her slender body, using hard friction across her ribs and arms, and praying he wasn’t worsening any injuries. “Miss, open your eyes.”
He was about to gather her up and carry her over to Sigurn, when dark brown lashes flickered on her pale cheeks and a cracked groan escaped her. She twisted in his arms, and he found himself staring into pale blue eyes the color of the sea at dawn. Beautiful, unusual eyes, with a rim of deepest black around the iris.
“What? Who?” she forced out, before she raised a shaking hand to her lips. Mortification flooded her expression. “Going to be…sick.”
Diarmid only just managed to turn her onto her side before she started to heave, bringing up what was mostly seawater. He kept hold of her as she jerked and shuddered, expelling what seemed to be half an ocean.
Hell, it was a lucky thing she hadn’t drowned like her companion. She’d clearly come close.
By the time she’d finished, she was gasping and loose with exhaustion. Diarmid helped her sit up and settled her head on his shoulder. She lolled against him, struggling for breath.
“That will make ye feel better, lassie,” Diarmid crooned, tightening his grip on her.
She smelled of the sea, and her fair hair hung in rats’ tails about her bonny face. He dug in his pocket for a handkerchief and started to wipe her damp cheeks. Green still tinged the translucent white skin.
“No, I’ll…I’ll do it,” she said unsteadily, raising a shaking hand to take the handkerchief. He took this sign of reviving spirit as a hopeful indication that she wasn’t badly hurt.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a hoarse voice, caused partly, he guessed, from vomiting, but mostly from embarrassment.
&nb
sp; “Are ye injured?” From what he could tell, he thought she’d suffered only bruises and scrapes, but he wanted to make sure.
A trembling hand touched her forehead. “I have a rotten headache.”
He frowned. A head injury could be serious, although she seemed perfectly lucid. The sooner he got her to shelter, the better.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It could be dehydration.”
To his surprise, her mouth quirked with unexpected humor. “I don’t feel at all dehydrated. Rather the opposite, in fact.”
He gave a grunt of amusement, as he registered her crisp Edinburgh accent. A Scotswoman, then. With her striking fairness, she could have washed in from Scandinavia.
Her dazed eyes looked past his shoulder at the windswept beach. “Where am I?”