The Winter Sea (Slains, #1)(87)

‘Aye.’ He was not fooled, she thought, by her attempt at being brave, yet he seemed touched by it. ‘’Tis only for a while.’

Sophia held her smile steady when it would have wavered. ‘Yes, I know. I will be fine. I’ve grown well used to being on my own.’

‘Ye’ll not be that.’ He spoke so low his words seemed carried by the breeze that brushed her upturned face. ‘Ye told me once,’ he said, ‘I had your heart.’

‘You do.’

‘And ye have mine.’ He folded one hand over hers and held it close against his chest so she could feel its beating strength. ‘It does not travel with me, lass, across the water. Where you are, it will remain. Ye’ll not be on your own.’ His fingers held the tighter to her smaller ones. ‘And I’ll no more be whole again,’ he said, ‘till I return.’

‘Then come back quickly.’ She had not meant for her whispered voice to break upon those words, nor for the sudden tears to spring behind her eyes.

Hooke called again, some distance still behind them, and she tried to step aside to let him go, but Moray had not finished yet with his farewell. His kiss, this time, was rougher, raw with feeling. She could feel the force of his regret, and of his love for her, and when it ended she clung close a moment longer, loathe to leave the circle of his arms.

She’d told herself she would not ask again, she would not burden him, and yet the words came anyway. ‘I would that I could go with you.’

He did not answer, only tightened his embrace.

Sophia’s vision blurred, and though she knew he would not change his mind, she felt compelled to say, ‘You told me once I might yet walk a ship’s deck.’

‘Aye,’ he murmured, warm against her brow, ‘and so ye will. But this,’ he said, ‘is not the ship.’ His kiss, so gentle on her hair, was meant for comfort, but it broke her heart.

Hooke’s steps were coming closer on the gravel.

There was no more time. Sophia, moved by impulse, freed her hands and reached to draw from round her neck the cord that held the small black pebble with the hole in it she’d found upon the beach.

She did not know if there was truly magic in that stone, as Moray’s mother had once told him, to protect the one who wore it from all harm, but if there was, she knew that Moray had more need of it than she did. Without words, she pressed it hard into his open hand, then quickly pushed away from him before her tears betrayed her, and ran soundlessly between the shadows to the kitchen door.

Behind her, she heard Hooke call Moray’s name again, more loudly, and an instant later Moray’s steps fell heavily along the garden path, and in a voice that sounded rougher than his own, he said, ‘I’m here. Is everything then ready?’

What came after that, Sophia did not hear, for she was through the door and running still, past Mrs Grant and Kirsty, and she did not stop till she had reached the solace of her chamber.

From her window, she could see the trail of moonlight on the sea, and rising dark across its silver path the tall masts of the Heroine, her sails now being raised to take the wind.

She felt the small, warm hardness of his ring, clenched in her fist so tightly that it bit into her hand and brought her pain, but she was grateful for the hurt. It was a thing that she could blame for all the tears that swam against her vision.

There was nothing to be gained, she knew, by weeping. She had wept the day her father, with one last embrace, had sailed for unknown shores, and she had wept still more the day her mother had gone after him, and weeping had not given them safe passage, nor yet brought them home again. She’d wept that black night that her sister, with the unborn bairn inside her, had been carried off in screams and suffering, and weeping had not left her any less alone.

So she would not weep now.

She knew that Moray had to leave, she understood his reasons. And she had his ring to hold, his unread letter to remind her of his love, and more than these, his promise that he would come back to her.

That should have been enough, she thought. But still the hotness swelled behind her eyes. And when all the frigate’s sails were filled with wind, and set for France, and the dark ship was loosed upon the rolling sea, Sophia blinked again, and one, small traitor of a tear squeezed through the barrier of lashes and tracked slowly down her cheek.

And then another found the path that it had taken. And another.

And she had been right. It did not help. Although she stood a long time at her window, watching steadily until at last the winging sails were swallowed by the stars; and though her tears, the whole time, slid in silence down her face to drop like bitter rain among the lilac petals scattered still upon her gown, it made no difference, in the end.

For he was gone from her, and she was left alone.





CHAPTER 15

I’D NEVER DONE MUCH gardening. My mother had, when I was young—but being young, I hadn’t paid attention. I’d assumed that, in the winter, there was nothing to be done, but Dr Weir was bent and busy in his shrubberies when I walked over in the afternoon.

‘We’ve not seen you about these past few days,’ he said. ‘Have you been away?’

‘Well, in a sense. I’ve been at Slains,’ I said, ‘three hundred years ago. That’s why I’m here, because a couple of my characters, so far, have mentioned spies.’