Wild Highland Magic (The Celtic Legends Series Book 3)(31)

The captain sidled her a look. She could read his thoughts shifting between greed and suspicion.

“The captain won’t take me,” she blurted, seizing the idea before she lost courage. “No captain will sail on a ship with a witch.”

***


The silence that followed her declaration was so leaden that Lachlan could hear the wine barrels in the hold scraping against one another in the roll of the tidal river. Yet she just stood with her chin raised like she hadn’t just confessed to cavorting with the devil.

“She’s out of her wits,” Lachlan said into the silence. “She was crazy enough before I even left the island.” She gasped but he spoke over her. “That’s why her father kept her close. Now she’s as mad as anyone would be after five days in the hold.”

Her slivered gaze defied him but he matched her look with a glare that warned her to say nothing.

“She belongs back under her father’s care,” he said. “The sooner I get her back, the better.”

“Find another berth,” the captain said.

“Captain—”

“Off my ship, Brochan, and take your witch with you.” The captain gestured to the open hold. “The rest of you, back to work!”

The sailors wandered back to their posts, but Lachlan saw the looks they gave him and Cairenn. So he curled his hand around her arm and drew her to the gunwale, glancing down to the men in the boat arranging what casks they’d already loaded so as better to balance. Relief swept through him when he realized he didn’t recognize any of the Derry men therein.

This was the last of his luck, he was sure of it.

He climbed down the rope ladder and stepped foot on the stowed barrels, waiting as Cairenn, the self-proclaimed witch, followed him down. As soon as he could reach, he seized her by the waist, swung her through the air, and set her down in the boat with more force than necessary.

He sat on a barrel beside her and leaned into her, turning his face so the Derry men in the boat couldn’t hear him. “Have you utterly lost your senses, woman?”

“I didn’t sit cramped in a stinking hold for five days,” she said between her teeth, “just to be sent back home.”

“So you declare yourself a witch in front of two dozen sailors.”

“I expected them to dismiss my confession.” Her throat flexed. “They’re outsiders, you’re an outsider, and that’s what you did.”

“I am not a sailor.” He flattened his hands on the wobbling casks as the Derry men reached for the last barrels. “Sailors won’t sail on Fridays because it’s thought to be bad luck. They don’t like women on board ship because it’s bad luck. They won’t whistle while at sea lest they whistle up a storm because it’s bad luck—”

“—so you decided to tell them I wasn’t right in the head.” She turned those piercing green eyes upon him. “And that’s why my father never let me off the island.”

“I’m trying to keep you off a burning stake.”

He saw a quiver shudder through her. She turned away. Maybe she wasn’t as foolhardy as she seemed.

As the boatmen pushed away from the galley and started rowing toward the quay, he switched his attention to the approaching shore. The sailors would talk in the alehouses. Soon word would spread about an Inishmaan girl—a witch—who’d stowed away to chase after a wounded sailor by the name of Brochan. The two of them would be the focus of too much attention. There’d be no careful approach to Angus O’Donnell now. He’d have to drag her to his cousin’s door and beg not just for warriors to avenge his father’s murder, but also for the coin to send her home.

“Ruari and Tadgh,” he said, running his hand across his unshaven jaw, “swore up and down that they didn’t see you climb onto the galley. How did you manage without attracting their attention?”

“They were blind drunk.”

He raised a brow. “No one could be blind to a beautiful woman climbing down a hatch.”

“It was dark, and they were distracted by the barking of the seals and a boat rowing by. While they were, I climbed over the gunwale and hid.” She frowned and rubbed her brow as if a headache loomed. “When they fell asleep, I snuck down the hatch and found a space among the barrels.”

“Falling asleep on watch is a whipping offense. They’ll never admit to it.” They’d attribute her appearance to witchery before they’d admit to it, which would give credence to her admission, damn it. “This boat that distracted the men, who was in it?”

“How am I to know? I was at the other end of the ship.”

“Don’t lie, Cairenn. I know you didn’t swim your way out to the galley, not in that rough surf.”

“Of course not. That would be madness. Something only a girl who has fits and delusions might do.” Her jaw tightened. “Or a witch.”

His lips thinned. He did not want to have this conversation about her so-called gift. He’d hurt her enough when he’d called her on her bluff in the sickroom at Inishmaan.

He said, “You had help getting out to the ship. I know it wasn’t Niall, he has too much sense. It was another man.” He felt a twist under his ribs, a sting that felt suspiciously like jealousy. “Whoever he was, he then distracted the sailors so you could climb on board.”