Chapter One

Claigan Beach – made of "minute pieces of calcified algae known as maerl. When maerl dies, the hardened skeleton is crushed by the action of waves, and then washed up on the shore where it is bleached to a brilliant white by the sun."

BritainExpress.com

Western Shore of the Isle of Skye, Scotland

25 th of June 1544

Rory MacLeod threw the short length of gray driftwood toward the lapping waves. Gus, his ancient wolfhound, loped after it. The whitecaps farther out in the bay off Claigan Beach churned up low waves. The water stretched onto the shore to grab and tumble the pebbles and shells, making them clatter against one another as they washed back into the sea.

Rory breathed in deeply of the sea air, letting the salt tang sting his nose. There was a hint of the smoke from the inland crop fields that were being burned to promote better growth, but the sea breeze pushed it back. Rory hoped the freedom in the wind would cleanse away the taint of imprisonment and betrayal that moldered in his chest like an illness. He preferred the outdoors now after being locked away in Carlisle dungeon for over a year.

Gus trotted to him, the driftwood stick caught in his crooked teeth. "Cù math," Rory said, tugging it from the dog's bite. He threw it, and the wind caught the stick, hurling it into the salty froth. Gus turned, joy in his slow trot as he ran after it. Poor old beast. He'd likely been ignored while Rory was locked away.

He turned his face southward where his clan castle, Dunvegan, sat on a sheltered inlet from the sea, a hill blocking sight of the hulking fortress from the beach. How he'd longed for it and the surrounding hills, forests, and this very strand of unique white beach.

His brother, Jamie, said Rory had sold his soul to the devil to escape, because he'd worked with sons of their enemies on Skye. Rory rubbed a thumb across his palm where four knife scars sat in red lines, healed but not yet faded. "But I didn't sell my soul to England," he said, the words caught by the wind. If Jamie had traded places with their father instead of Rory, Jamie wouldn't have survived. It had taken the four Highland warriors, working together, to escape back to their homes on the Isle of Skye, each of them using their special skills and the anonymous gifts sent in blankets. The mystery of their benefactor had yet to be solved.

The wind blew the sweat dry in Rory's hair. He'd been training since dawn on his horse, Airgid, with the other MacLeod warriors on the moor outside the village of Dunvegan. The men had rotated, half training with sword and horse and the other half tending the fields of fire. Rory had taken his turn walking along the edge of the barley field that would grow all the better with the weeds burned away. So taking a dip in the cold saltwater would cleanse his body as well as his soul.

The caw of a bird made him look upward. He spotted the black crow and followed it, turning to scan the white crescent of beach where the blue-green water pushed froth up higher with the incoming tide. Smoke rose from over the hill in contrast to the cool view of tumbling waves.

His gaze lifted to Cnoc Mor a Ghrobain, a hill covered in green grasses and wildflowers, above the shoreline. A woman stood on the ridge, her full skirts tugged by the wind which caught her long, auburn hair, swirling it around. For a second, another lass from years ago flashed through Rory's memory, one who'd stood there being whipped by her own hair. But Madeline was no more, and yet his biggest shame haunted him still. He shook his head and refocused on the hill.

The field burned beyond the woman, and she moved forward out of the smoke. She raised her arms, and he could imagine her as a Celtic goddess leaving a swath of destruction behind her, her magic making her hair rise like rays of a sun out from her head. Unease pricked his shoulder blades even a decade after Madeline.

This woman was no phantom. She was likely a guest for his brother's wedding on the morrow. The bride traveled from Dunscaith Castle on the Sleat peninsula of Skye, which was a two-day slow ride to the south, so Macdonalds had been arriving over the last couple days.

The woman pointed down the shore from where he stood, yelling, but the wind snatched away her words. Rory turned to where she'd pointed, and his heart lurched.

"Shite!" He broke into a run across the shifting pieces of shell and crystallized seaweed toward Gus in the water. The dog was farther out than he should be, his wiry snout barely above the surface, his teeth clinging to the driftwood that Rory had thrown. "Daingead!" Rory cursed, yanking off one boot and then the other. The broken pieces of hardened seaweed jabbed into his feet, but non-lethal pain meant little, and he hardly noticed it as he ran toward the surf.

"Swim!" Underwater currents had been known to suck a man out to sea. Had Gus been caught in one? He was old, nearly eleven years now, and the large breed did not usually live past a decade.

Rory yanked off his tunic as he ran and unbuckled his belt, dropping his plaid wrap that would only weigh him down in the angry sea. Water sprayed up around him as he lifted his knees high, charging into the stinging iciness of the water. Gus's face went under a wave. With another leap, Rory dove, his hands pointed out before him. His fingers jabbed into the shaggy body of his best friend, and his arms wrapped around the struggling dog. They broke the surface together, water in Rory's eyes.

"I've got ye," he yelled, pulling the large, warm body against him as he pushed them upward, his feet shifting in the sand underneath, making him wobble. Saltwater stung his eyes as it dripped down his forehead. Underwater, the currents tugged hard at his legs, but he plowed forward toward shore, taking huge steps against the pull. Icy daggers sliced across him, but the pain was invigorating.

Gus continued to whip his head around as if searching for the bloody stick. "I'll find ye another one," Rory said. He wouldn't be throwing it in the surf again.

"Your throw led him too deep."

The woman's voice made Rory's face snap up, and he stopped in the water that fell about his hips, just high enough to cover him while balancing Gus's huge, wet body.

The lass from the hill held her green skirts higher and kicked off her slippers to wade a bit into the surf as if ready to help pull his dog to shore. A generous mouth sat in a smooth oval face with a straight nose and rosy cheeks, but it was her eyes that stood out. They were large and blue, the outer edges tipped upward, giving her a magical look, like she was one of the fairy folk who'd given his clan the Fairy Flag so long ago. Her hair was lashed with gold and red and fell forward over her shoulders as she waded toward him.

"Do you need help with him?" she asked.

Rory shifted the large dog in his arms, ignoring the water trying to suck him back out, like he was prey that it hated to lose. "Nay," he said. "If ye come out here, then I'll have to rescue ye, too."

"I can swim," she said with a frown.

"Not with all those petticoats."

He cursed low as the sand and shells shifted under his feet. His frozen ballocks had crawled back inside him. Invigorating as the icy water was, he needed to get out. "I'm unclothed."

"Shall I turn away so as not to embarrass you?"

"Turn around or swoon in awe." He shrugged as best he could with the one-hundred-forty-pound wet dog in his arms. "But I can't help a fainting lass when I'm helping my dog."

That generous mouth of hers turned up at the corners. "I'd help the dog before a fainting female, too."

Rory stepped out of the sea and lowered Gus onto the shells before trudging to his discarded plaid and belt. The woman hadn't turned away. Did the lass know that icy water made a man's ballocks and cock pull up as if to hide in the warmth of his body? His mouth opened to explain, but he stopped himself before he looked like a fool.

"Daingead." He wrapped himself in his plaid with hardly the right number of pleats, but it would hold with his belt, nonetheless.

"You poor thing," the woman said, and Rory turned to see her crouching before Gus, checking his paws.

"I have salve up at the castle." Rory glanced down at the bloody tracks he'd left on some rocks and the crystallized seaweed and shells. "Ifrin," he cursed.

The woman backed up, studying him from under long lashes. "You live up at Dunvegan Castle?" Her speech seemed more refined, keeping each syllable evident. Blue ribbons crisscrossed her bodice, fitting it to her body, making her gentle curves evident.

"Some of the time," he answered. With his brother and his mistress trysting in shadowed corners, Rory had learned to stay out of the castle and was planning to make a permanent move out to one of the old tower houses.

A small pinch appeared between her brows that looked like disappointment. "And this is your sweet pup?" Gus plopped down, making it clear he was worn out, and she scratched his head.

"Aye. He used to swim off this beach all the time," Rory said, grabbing his tunic. "But he's getting older."

"What's his name?"

"Gus, short for Angus of the Northern Hills."

She smiled, and her eyes glittered with mirth. "A valiant name for a valiant beast."

"I found him nearly starved and covered in mud on a journey in the northern mountains on the mainland. That was long ago now."

"He was quite fortunate," she said, taking Gus's massive head in both her hands and scratching behind his ears. She didn't seem to care that his dog was filthy and wet. The woman laughed as Gus licked her cheek, and Rory noticed a fine sprinkling of freckles flicked like pale stars across her nose. "What cloudy eyes you have," she said. "You're old indeed. Have you lived a glorious life chasing hares and birds?"

"Aye, he has." Rory turned to jam his cut feet into his boots.

He caught the lass staring at him. Her expressive eyes snapped up to meet his gaze, and he guessed from their wideness that she'd seen the scars on his back from the flaying he'd received compliments of the English king. He threw on his tunic, letting it hang loose.

"There are ointments you can apply to help them fade," she said without a trace of pity, although her face had grown serious.

Even so, he stiffened and studied her. Sunlight played across the streaks of gold in her hair. Her hands looked strong and gentle at the same time. "Ye know about scars?"

She stared at him, unafraid to meet his gaze. So the lass was brave. "Yes," she said. "Some fade, some do not. But I think yours are the kind that fade."

The woman took a full inhale through her nose, the edges of her lips relaxing. "I make an oil with blaeberry, lavender, and rosemary," she said. "To rub in."

She spoke with confidence, her knowledge as bright as her eyes. She wiggled her feet into her slippers and then squatted to kiss Gus's black nose. Still crouched, she turned her face to Rory. "You could put some on his feet, too, although he'd probably lick it off." She turned her face away from Gus's big tongue, and Rory's wolfhound licked her ear, making her laugh and scrunch her neck on that side as if it tickled.

The woman had pretty little earlobes. Has anyone ever tugged on them…with their teeth? The thought shot straight to his randy cock, which had most definitely thawed.

She straightened but still smiled down at the dog. "I wager your big tongue gets you into trouble, Gus. My tongue gets me into trouble, too."

The image of her licking an ear rammed into Rory's mind. "Yer tongue?" he said, and she turned back to meet his gaze. His brows rose, and he gave a lopsided grin. "What type of trouble does it get into?" He hadn't felt like smiling for a long time.

She tucked some of her whipping hair behind that sweet ear and huffed. "I meant that I speak before I consider how my words might be construed." She flapped her hand at him. "Like right then."

"I rather like how ye talk before considering yer words."

She pinched her lips into a serious line, but her eyes sparked with humor. "You would be the first person to commend me for carelessly speaking what's in my mind." Her gaze slid to the hill behind him and then back to meet his gaze. "I must go, but first… Are you, by chance, Jamie MacLeod?"

The abrupt change in topic took him a moment. Rory's grin collapsed back into the frown that seemed to have become a permanent feature over the last years. But before he could answer, a bellow from up on the hillside made her spin away.

"Sweet Mother Mary," she said, and Rory followed her gaze to the man standing on the hill above the beach. She patted Gus's wet head and turned away. "Good day to you," she called as she hurried back up the hill, her skirts held higher so she could move at a pace that was as fast as a run but looked like a walk. She stopped, glancing back at him. "I will see you…again, I think." She hurried off, her red-hued tresses flying in the wind behind her.

The lass was bonny, but there was some other quality that tugged at Rory. Perhaps her kindness to Gus or the genuine tone to her words, as if she had nothing to hide. Rory's chest clenched. Madeline had possessed a guileless air about her, and Rory's trust in her had seen her dead.