TEMPEST IN THE HIGHLANDS E-Book

May McGoldrick

• Herausgeber: Book Duo Creative
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Scottish Relic Trilogy
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 334

Beschreibung

The Scottish Relic Trilogy: Book Three  Miranda MacDonnell is on the run. When she inherited a mysterious relic from her mother, she had no idea of the dangers it would bring. Now, hunted by a relentless foe who will stop at nothing to find her, she has one choice: stow away on the ship of the notorious privateer, Black Hawk. Rob Hawkins, the privateer known as Black Hawk, has a mission from the Tudor king to find and kill the rogue commander, Sir Ralph Evers. To complete his quest, Hawk must find Miranda, a young woman Evers is pursuing. Caught in a tempest, he is shipwrecked with a lad who demonstrates an uncanny ability for saving him. Cast away on the mysterious Isle of the Dead in the Outer Hebrides, Hawk realizes that the 'lad' traveling with him is actually Miranda MacDonnell, and having her means that Evers will come to him. What begins as a ploy—using her as bait—soon changes, however, as feelings begin to emerge between them. Ancient forces are at work, drawing all four possessors of the relic's power to the Isle of the Dead for a final battle where good must overcome the forces of evil in this spectacular climax to the Scottish Relic Trilogy.

Leseprobe

TEMPEST IN THE HIGHLANDS

SCOTTISH RELIC TRILOGY

BOOK III

MAY MCGOLDRICK

Book Duo Creative

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Edition Note

Author’s Note

Also by May McGoldrick, Jan Coffey & Nik James

About the Author

Thank you for choosing Tempest in the Highlands. In the event that you enjoy this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review.

Tempest in the Highlands

Copyright © 2022 by Nikoo and James McGoldrick

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher: Book Duo Creative.

Cover by Dar Albert, WickedSmartDesigns.com

1

Shrine of the Cloak

Monyabroch, Scotland

May 1544

“Fire.”

Miranda sat up, wondering if she’d dreamed the word.

On the cot beside her, Miranda’s her mother rocked stiffly, her eyes staring off into the smoky darkness of the hostel. The word came from Muirne MacDonnell’s lips, but she was locked in a fixed, trancelike state.

“Fire . . . burning,” Muirne whispered, unaware of the dozens of other pilgrims sleeping around them.

Miranda touched her mother’s face. It was hot. Feverishly hot. For a moment, she wondered if this was more of the sickness that had brought them here. For months now, they’d traveled to one holy shrine after another as the illness gripping Muirne worsened, putting her far beyond the healing abilities of the physicians they visited. They all claimed there was nothing to be done. She was dying.

“Houses burning. Churches. Smoke. Edinburgh is in flames.”

These were not the words of fever, Miranda realized. This was a vision, like so many she’d seen over the years.

Only a handful of the travelers in this room were MacDonnells. Regardless of their kinship, she couldn’t rely on any of them for help. None knew of Muirne’s visions. And how they came true.

A single line of moonlight streamed past the edge of a shuttered window, cutting a swath across the sleeping women. But for the occasional restlessness and the soft snores, the chamber was still. Beyond the whitewashed stone walls on either side, room after room overflowed with pilgrims.

Every spring they came to the Shrine of the Cloak. Crutches littered the floor between the sleeping travelers. Many traveled long distances. The lame, the blind, the sick, the desperate, the faithful. They all came to the shrine for help, believing one touch of the saint’s cloak would heal them.

Miranda caressed Muirne’s face and pulled her mother against her, hoping to ease her gently from the spell. Time was an obscure element in these visions. Perhaps when she awakened, they’d know more of what she’d seen.

Her gaze fell on an old woman sitting against the wall. Dark eyes watched them. Lips moved as she prayed her rosary.

At eighteen, Miranda knew how dangerous it was to expose her mother to suspicion of being possessed or, worse, to charges of witchcraft. This was all explainable. She was having a nightmare, that’s all.

Muirne clutched at her arm, her eyes open wide. The next wave of the nightmare she was wrapped in was ready to consume her. “They’re here.”

Any further thought of explaining fled. Springing from the cot, Miranda rushed between the beds to the shuttered window. Pushing it open, she looked out past the gate at the end of the inn’s courtyard.

Muirne was right, as always. Even from this vantage point, she saw them in the distance, coming over a hill on the river road. A seemingly endless line of torches, a glittering serpent slithering through the night toward the shrine.

Travelers around the room stirred. A woman raised her head in the darkness a few feet away.

“Gather your things,” Miranda cried out. “Everyone. We must go. We must all leave here now.”

Moving between the cots, she shoved the shoulder of one, then the next, shaking them.

“Wake up,” she shouted, going to the door and pulling it open. “Quickly. Gather your things and run to the north. We’re under attack.”

Miranda helped an old woman to her feet.

“Go and rouse the men,” she said to a girl. “Soldiers. English soldiers are almost upon us. They’ll burn the shrine and pillage the town. Kill us all.”

A woman cried out from the window. “She’s right. I see them!”

The room erupted in panic.

Women streamed out the door and down the steps into the courtyard. From the men’s rooms came shouts as word reached them.

A toddler wailed as people stampeded around her. Miranda lifted the child into her arms. A blind nun stumbled, pushed from behind. Miranda rushed forward, putting her body in the path of the chaos, giving her room to get back on her feet. The child’s mother found her, and the toddler dove into her embrace.

Miranda turned around. The room was empty. She snatched their bag and cloaks and held tight to Muirne’s arm. “Come on, Mother. We must go now.”

Surrounded by other pilgrims, they hurried through the village. As they went along, word spread quickly to other inns and hostels. Before they reached the northern edge of the town, crowds had begun to pour out into the muddy roads.

Miranda and her mother reached the fields and started the climb into the hills. Folk spread out across the rising meadowland, and in the moonlight, she realized that hundreds must have taken flight.

As they reached the crest of the ridge that formed the river valley, Miranda stopped and looked back.

Other pilgrims around them stopped and looked back, as well. The line of soldiers was already in the village. Torchbearers branched out in smaller streams, racing among the buildings. Almost immediately, the fires began to appear.

“By the Virgin, they’re burning the shrine!” a voice cried out. “The devils are burning the shrine.”

“Who sounded the alarm?” someone asked. “Who saw them coming?”

The crowd grew quiet, and then a thin voice broke the silence.

“Her.”

Miranda recognized her. The old woman praying her rosary at the hostel.

“That one.” She lifted her bony finger. “Muirne from Tarbert Castle. The wife of the MacDonnell laird, Angus. She saw it in her dream.”

Beneath the sinking moon, faces turned to look at them.

Miranda’s stomach tightened. A lifetime of secrecy ruined.

Wrapping her cloak around her mother and pulling it up over her head, Miranda said nothing but turned Muirne toward the west. Together, they moved off into the darkness for the long journey home.

* * *

The English army burned and pillaged at will. Edinburgh, the abbey at Holyroodhouse, and the king’s palace. Leith, Cragmiller, Newbattle Abbey, the Chapel of Our Lady, Preston town and castle, Hatintown with the friary and nunnery, and many others. The invaders spared neither castle, town, pile, nor village until they had overthrown and destroyed them . . . and at great loss of life.

One place stood apart in the rampage. Every pilgrim at the Shrine of the Cloak escaped. The miracle was attributed to a woman with the sight. To a woman who had seen the future.

Muirne MacDonnell.

2

Tarbert Castle

Kintyre, Western Scotland

Four Months Later

Though the fires in the tower were nearly out, the acrid smell of smoke hung thick in the air, burning the English ship captain’s lungs. Rob Hawkins glanced down the hill at the village and the harbor. Tarbert Castle would survive, he thought, but too many of its inhabitants had not.

Frowning, he turned his attention back to the cleric.

“Aye, his name was Evers.” The old priest was upset and growing more agitated with each question.

Something wasn’t right, Rob thought. Why would Evers leave his army in the Highlands only to sail down the western coast of Scotland? Compared with all the bulging abbey vaults and coffers that he’d already emptied, this castle seemed to offer nothing. So why come here? Why kill the laird?

But nothing made sense about this mission.

When the messenger arrived from France, where Henry Tudor was fighting at Boulogne, the king’s orders had been explicit. Rob was to find Sir Ralph Evers—Governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed, Commander in the North, Warden of the East March, High Sheriff of Durham. And then he was to kill the man. Not reprimand him. Not charge him with some crime. Not bring him back to face justice.

His task was to find him…and kill him.

And in return, Rob would be rewarded with the ultimate prize for a privateer: a letter of marque, issued by the king, giving him free rein to attack and plunder the ships of enemy nations. And right now, King Henry was at war with almost everyone. And that meant the potential for tremendous wealth.

Sense or nonsense, Rob had immediately weighed anchor and sailed north.

“You’re certain it was Sir Ralph Evers,” he stressed.

“It was him, I tell you. The devil himself. The Scourge of the Borders.”

Rob turned to look at the wisps of smoke still rising from the tower. His men were working side-by-side with the locals to put out the last of the fires and tend to the wounded. Bodies of the dead had been lined up along the castle wall. He glanced out at his ship, the Peregrine, anchored in the harbor.

He’d expected to be sailing farther north in search of his quarry. When he put in at Whitehaven for supplies, the commander there told him that Evers and his mongrel army were last seen tearing through the Highlands in search of “the bloody Holy Grail, or some such thing.” But when they intercepted a small merchant vessel soon after leaving port, he learned that an Englishman had put Tarbert Castle to the torch not a day earlier. The brutality of the attack matched Evers’s style, and the MacDonnell stronghold was on his way. Rob had decided to stop. His decision had paid off.

“And this,” he said to the priest, gesturing toward the tower and the corpses. “The killing, the looting, the fire. You say all this happened after he discovered the laird’s wife was dead?”

“Aye. No one here will be mourning long for Angus MacDonnell. The man was a hard one, and as tough and tight-fisted as an old oyster. But his wife Muirne . . . that’s a woman who’ll be missed. Died not a fortnight ago.” The wiry cleric wrung his hands. “Och, nothing but anguish for us now. When the MacDonnell came as laird, we thought our lives would be better. They never were. But here, it’s come to this. It’ll be worse, for sure. Almost too much for my heart to bear.”

Rob shook his head. “Did Evers know the laird’s wife? Was there some arrangement that went astray? None of this makes any sense to me.”

“Nor to me,” the priest agreed, clutching the wooden cross at his belt. “But I know what I know.”

And Rob only believed what he could see with his own eyes. Sir Ralph Evers had been a valuable commander in the king’s service, but something had gone wrong with the man. He seemed to have defected, but not to fight with Scotland or France or Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire. As far as Rob could tell, Evers was fighting on his own side. But he didn’t believe a man as seasoned and honored as this one would give up everything to go off on some mythical quest. So why did he do it?

To find and kill the man, Rob needed more answers.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” the priest grumbled. “You say you’re a Scot, and your crew looks to have Scots and Portuguese sailors, but I know you’re an Englishman, and don’t try to deny it. You’re the pirate they call Black Hawk.”

“Pirate? Nay.” Rob glared at the old man. “My father is English. I’ll not deny it. But my mother was a Kennedy, born and bred in Moray. So, I have Scot’s blood running in my veins that is as good as yours or anyone’s. And you be damned if you say I’ve done your folk any harm.”

The cleric looked away from him, staring at the men working together across the courtyard. He nodded.

“For your Kennedy blood then, I’ll tell you. The Englishman came to Tarbert, invited by the laird. He was led into the Great Hall like a guest.”

Rob tried to imagine what kind of deal Angus MacDonnell would have made with a renegade commander like Evers.

The man pointed at the tower. “The laird was no fool. And that makes all this even harder to understand.”

Rob waited, seeing there was more the cleric wanted to say.

“When his men hauled me up from the village, I thought it was for a hanging. Mine.” He frowned at the memory. “The Great Hall was bloody with bodies. The laird himself was still sitting in his chair, dead as that stone. They dragged me straight to Evers, and I saw it for the first time. The face of Satan.”

“What did he want from you?”

The old man swayed slightly. “He wanted me to take him into the family crypt.”

Rob’s gaze swept across the wreckage left behind by Evers. “The crypt?”

The priest shrugged, shaking his head. “He wanted me to show him where the laird’s wife had been interred.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” The cleric grew pale. “I told him she wasn’t there. I told him how she died and there was no body to bury. But he didn’t believe me. When I swore it was the truth, I never saw such fury in a man’s eyes. I thought I was about to die. He kept after me. Asked so many questions. I don’t know what I answered . . . but then I happened to mention the daughter. I believe that saved my neck.”

“No body? Wait.” The puzzle was getting more complicated. “What daughter?”

“Miranda.” He hesitated. “There was never a more devoted daughter than that lass. And now she’s gone, too.”

Trying to understand the cleric was like untying a knot of wet rope. “What happened to the daughter?”

“Muirne MacDonnell had been sick for some time. Dying. Everyone knew it. Miranda always cared for her. Even took her on pilgrimages. Then, three weeks ago, the lass went off. Just disappeared.”

“And no one knows where this daughter went?”

“Not a soul, as far as I know,” the priest replied. “And we’ve all been missing that one, I tell you.”

“Why?”

“That lass has a way about her. Whenever there was a fire in a cottage, she was there. If a dog went mad, she was there. If the children were playing too close to the well, she was there. One day, she came running down to the village saying that schools of mullet were coming into the loch. Before you could say ‘Ave Maria’, the harbor was alive with jumping fish. The folk ate well that whole winter because of her.”

Rob shook his head. He didn’t want to be distracted. “But the daughter just disappeared, and then the laird’s wife died?”

The priest clutched the cross again. “One evening—a few days after Miranda left—Muirne took a fisherman’s boat and rowed out into the firth. The next morning, they found the boat, but Muirne was not to be found.”

“Maybe the daughter fetched her—or someone else did. How do you know she was dead?”

“I cannot answer that. But the laird claimed that she fell in. Her illness had been growing harder for her to bear. Everyone knew she was growing weaker. If she fell out of the boat, by accident, she would have drowned for sure.”

The old priest swayed unsteadily. Fearing he might collapse, Rob helped the man over to a bench along the kitchen wall.

“And you told Evers this. You told him Muirne MacDonnell wasn’t buried there.”

“That’s so.”

“But he still went into the crypt?”

“Aye.” The priest frowned. “And something happened in there.”

“What do you mean?” Rob fought the frustration rising in him, but he needed to find out where Evers went from here.

“All I know is, the last thing he asked before he went in was where Miranda might have gone. She was the one he wanted next. No one had the answer. But when he came out, he called his commanders together. I heard him myself. They were setting sail for Mull. They were going to Duart Castle. You’d think he got his answer from the dead.”

3

The great black bird swept down, skimming the blue-green waters. The hawk banked and rose, riding the invisible breezes. As he circled upward, Miranda realized her feet were shackled to a high pedestal of rock, surrounded by a glistening sea. She struggled against the trap, but there was no relief.

The winds began to buffet her, whipping her cloak. Suddenly, the black hawk dove, pulling up at the last instant and landing gracefully on the smooth stone surface. The wings disappeared and he transformed before her eye into a man. She stared at the tangle of black hair hanging to his shoulders. The tall powerful frame towered on the rock. His hazel eyes focused on her.

She felt no fear. He had come and she’d expected him. This had to be Rob Hawkins, as her mother foretold. Muirne said that their destinies were entwined. He was the only one who could free her of these bonds.

As he stepped toward her, the sea swelled, dashing them both with salt spray. He reached out to her.

Before their fingers touched, the color of the sky behind him changed to a stormy gray. In the distance, the air crackled with flashes of lightning.

Suddenly, the sea surged up the sides of their rocky perch, and a wave as tall as Ben Nevis rose above, hung a moment, and then crashed down, carrying him off into the roiling waters.

She screamed in despair, her eyes searching for him. But he was gone.

He’s going to drown.

Miranda MacDonnell awoke in a panic, staring through the dim light at blackened timbers. The wood seemed to be weeping. She was wet, lying in a net hammock. The vision was slow to recede. She couldn’t move her feet.

Taking deep breaths, she fought the rigid spasms she’d seen grip her mother’s body a thousand times in the past. They were slow to release her.

A tremendous boom assaulted her ears, and a shudder traveled through her. The rolling motion reminded Miranda that she was aboard a ship.

Rob Hawkins. The Black Hawk. His ship. She’d boarded at Tarbert. Cutting her hair and donning boy’s clothing, she’d pretended to be kitchen help.

She stiffened. The vision hovered, reminding her of the gift that was now hers. Grief over her mother’s death lingered on. But she had to pay attention. He was going to drown. She needed to get to him.

As she rolled from the hammock, the ship pitched forward and shuddered again as if it struck a stone wall. The smell of bilge water, stirred up by the churning seas, rose from below, turning her stomach. Miranda landed on all fours on rough wood decking and touched the stone in the pouch she wore at her belt. As she stood, clutching the hammocks on either side, the bow of the ship angled upward, and seawater washed over her through gaps in the planking above.

In the distance, a bell began to clang, and curses pierced the darkness from other hammocks.

Since boarding the Peregrine only two days ago, Miranda had stayed out of sight as much as she could. All that was forgotten now.

The bulkhead door swung open, and the mate’s head appeared. A howling squall of rain and wind swept in.

“Up, dogs,” he shouted. “All are needed.”

Miranda was already at the door, pushing past him. Relieved to be out of the tight enclosure where the crew slept, she burst into the open air, only to be slapped with stinging salt spray.

Out on deck, chaos reigned. From everywhere came shouts, half lost in the roar of the waves and the screaming winds. Men struggled, holding on to lines and looking up at the masts and rigging where others hung on for their lives.

In front of her, a cask broke loose from the base of the mainmast and tipped over, banging and bouncing with lethal power across the deck. When it reached the gunwale, smashing into it, two sailors dove across the deck to secure it. But they couldn’t hold it as the ship rolled, and the barrel careened back across, bouncing overboard, but not before taking out a portion of the ratlines that held the mast.

Miranda couldn’t see him. She lurched to the gunwale, fighting down the panic gripping her. Her mother had sent Miranda from the castle with stern orders to remain in hiding near the village and wait for him. Black Hawk was the key to finding her twin, the brother Miranda now hoped to find shelter with once this ship reached Duart Castle. The brother who had been separated from her at birth because of the vile man she called ‘father’. But now, in her own vision, she’d seen Black Hawk washed overboard.

Wind-driven spray stung her face. A wave rose up and crashed over the deck. Wondering if the sea would swallow up the ship entirely, she fought back a fear that was colder than the ocean itself.

She’d been on board ships many times, but never in seas as wild as this. And always as a passenger, as the laird’s daughter.

Jumping up and clinging to the ratlines as another wave washed over them, she peered through the driving rain. Where was Black Hawk?

Miranda fought her way aft. With each roll of the ship, water poured over the side, forcing her to hold on until it receded enough for her to go farther.

Suddenly she saw him, towering over the sailors on the stern deck, shouting orders to a crew scrambling to save their ship and themselves. He exuded raw power and the sure-footedness of a man bred aboard ships. For a brief second, Miranda’s gaze moved down to the leather jerkin, dark with rain, the white shirt plastered to the sinewy muscles of his arms. With his black hair streaming about his face, Rob Hawkins punctuated his commands with explosive curses.

All but one of the canvas sails on the forward masts had been gathered and secured. Only the topmost sail on the mainmast remained to be furled. He was pointing at it and shouting. A line had snagged and two sailors were hanging on and trying to free it.

The mate screamed at Miranda from behind. “Up, lad. Cut the sheets if need be, but get that canvas in.”

She looked up, the salt water burning her eyes. The mast was tall and the tip of it disappeared in a shroud of mist. She’d never climbed anything that high. But her life had never been in danger before, either. Another of her mother’s visions. If Miranda had stayed at Tarbert, she would die.

So many firsts.

“Good Saint Brendan,” she prayed, climbing onto the side rail. “Save me from a watery grave. More important, save him from . . .”

The crack of the mast above her froze the prayer in her throat. The ratlines went slack in her grasp, and she nearly went overboard as the top third of the mast snapped and crashed downward. Splintered wood from the yards and lines that held it aloft all came smashing to the deck.

A wave struck the ship at that moment and swept two sailors past her. To her horror, one went overboard on a foaming swell. The leg of the other caught in the lines, leaving the screaming man dangling head downward over the side.

Miranda grabbed his other leg, but she knew she couldn’t hold him for long.

She didn’t know where he came from, but Black Hawk landed on the billowing canvas and was beside her in an instant.

With nothing to stop himself from going over, the captain hauled the man back aboard as if he weighed no more than a feather.

Depositing him on deck, he patted him on the chest, shouting, “You’re safe now, man.”

“Aye, Hawk,” the sailor panted, trying to catch his breath. “Safe.”

Rob Hawkins cut him free of the lines that had saved him and grabbed Miranda’s tunic by the shoulder. He pointed upward.

“Climb now, lad. Cut the sheets. This whole mast will go if we don’t cut the sail free, and God help us when that happens.”

His hand brushed against hers and she saw in her mind’s eye that her vision was the truth. He was going down into this stormy sea. Hawk was gone before she could say a word.

There was nothing she could do but obey his orders. Perhaps by saving the ship, she decided, she could save him.

This was her life, reacting to one crisis after another. Before, it had always been Muirne’s vision that directed her; now it was her own. She could change futures and save lives. But to do so, she needed to ignore the dangers she faced. It had always been that way.

Watching him as he moved across the heaving deck toward the stern, Miranda took a deep breath, reached up, and shivered. Peering up at the mast swaying wildly above her, she doubted she could reach the yardarm where Black Hawk pointed, never mind cut the thick lines. She would certainly come hurtling to the deck and break her neck.

Dangers. Miranda had lost count of the times she’d cheated death over the years as she tried to save someone’s life. And yet, her own future remained a mystery. Her own end, whenever it should come, lay beyond her visions. She swallowed the knot of fear threatening to choke her. What she did know was that she had to climb now. Their survival depended on it.

The lines whipped in the wind, and the mast was groaning under the pressure of the sail. There was not a moment to lose. Before she could pull herself up, another wave rose up and crashed across the deck. A wall of foaming green water smashed her against the gunwale, but somehow she hung on, trying to catch her breath.

When she righted herself and wiped the water from her eyes, the main deck was littered with wreckage. The ship rolled again, and another crack cut through the howling wind.

Miranda looked up in time to see a boom tear free and hammer down on the stern. Black Hawk vaulted it as it swept the deck, but the rigging snagged him. As he struggled to free himself, another wave rose up, hung a moment, and then washed the aft deck clear, carrying the captain overboard.

Her heart stopped. She hung out over the side, clinging to the ratlines as her eyes searched frantically in the turbulent waters. It couldn’t happen like this. He couldn’t drown.

“Please, God,” she murmured. She couldn’t have survived all she’d gone through just to have it end like this. Pieces of the ship spread across the green waters. Railings and masts and casks bobbed amid trailing lines and torn canvas.

There, not far astern, she spotted a puff of white. It was Black Hawk. She couldn’t let him die. She needed him.

Climbing up onto the railing, she took a deep breath and dove into the watery tumult. The sea was freezing, but she swam in the direction of the white cloth. With each swell, she rose high in the air, at one point looking down at the deck of the crippled ship before descending into a trough that she thought would swallow her.

A moment later, she rode upward again on a rising swell, and the Peregrine moved past, leaving Miranda in its wake.

She saw him. His face turned upward before disappearing beneath the gray-green waters.

Swimming hard, she dove just as a wave crested over her. The force drove her deep into the briny sea. Hawk was floating just above her, his arms spread powerlessly.

Miranda’s burning lungs were about to burst when she reached him. Grabbing his collar, she kicked as hard as she could and managed to reach the surface, sputtering and gasping for air.

Timber that had once been part of the ship floated nearby, and she struggled to haul the man to it. Her strength was nearly gone by the time they reached it, but she pushed him up onto the beam.

Miranda allowed herself a glimmer of hope when she heard him cough up seawater. His eyes opened for a moment, and he looked into her face before they closed again.

Wreckage surrounded them, but the ship itself was nowhere to be seen beyond the mountains of water.

She held on to a corner of the beam and fought back the despair that was ready to turn to panic. Where were they? Who was to find them? How long could she hold on before the cold and churning sea sucked her down into its depths? She touched Hawk’s hand, but the only thing she could see was water, dark and endless.

Tears sprang to her eyes and blended with the saltiness of the sea on her lips. Images of her short history paraded before her. What had her life consisted of? Serving. Guarding at all times against the unexpected. Rescuing others and heading off disasters. Worrying about her mother. Miranda never allowed herself to dream, to plan, to think of a future; her life wasn’t hers to do as she wished. Her purpose was to react when called upon.

The sea was a grave and the numbing chill of death crept up her legs.

A moan rose from her chest and escaped her lips. She blinked back more tears as she recalled Muirne’s words during their last day together. Miranda didn’t want to go. She wasn’t going to leave her mother.

You have no choice, Miranda. Death awaits you if you stay. But there is more.

She’d listened diligently to everything Muirne told her about Hawk. But there was still more that she needed to think through.

This is a journey that you must travel. You will need to learn, change, and be reborn to find out who you are. The relic is a gift, but it can also be a curse. Surely you know that already. But you must learn how to manage it so it will serve you rather than forcing you to sacrifice your life serving it.

Sacrifice her life. Die in the service of a broken fragment of stone. Miranda’s limbs were growing heavy. Her chin sank into the cold sea. She touched Hawk’s hand again. Dark, stormy seas filled her vision.

Her head sank beneath the water, exhaustion setting in. She thought how easy it would be to let go. Muirne told Miranda that her life would be inextricably entwined with that of this man, but she realized now that her mother never said just how short that life might be.

As if in response, Hawk slipped off the beam into the sea. Miranda didn’t know where she found the strength, but she reached up and caught him. Struggling, she again pushed them both to the surface. That’s when she saw a line floating off a timber nearby.

Miranda drew her knife, cut a length of it, and lashed herself and Hawk together across the timber.

4

Rob Hawkins rolled to his side and his stomach heaved. Coughing up about a keg of seawater onto the sand, he forced himself to his hands and knees.

He was alive. Somehow, he’d made it to shore. He sank back down to the hard sand. But how? And what shore? Where was he? What happened to his ship? His crew?

A stinging rain was pelting him, and the wind was still howling. He tried to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t. His entire body ached and his mouth tasted like bilge.

He recalled sailing north when the weather took a turn for the worse. He’d never seen it turn so quickly, and he’d grown up aboard ships. He was the oldest son of William Hawkins, a Plymouth sailing merchant who also commanded a fleet of privateers for the English Crown.

He made the effort to sit, but his arms were as heavy as millstones. His face was lying in a cold, sandy bed of seaweed. He worried about his crew, fighting to stay alive in that bloody storm.

And what of his ship? The Peregrine was his and only his. If that ship was at the bottom of the sea, how many in his crew had gone down as well? He had handpicked nearly all of those men. English, Portuguese, and Scots, and he was damn proud of them.

Rob was half Scot by birth, and that put him on the outside of English society, especially after his father’s second marriage to a highborn English woman. When they produced two more sons, his position hadn’t improved. But he didn’t care.

He smelled the sand and forced down the bitter taste of brine in his throat.

Rob was proud of making his own way. He wanted no part of court life. He never wanted to be dependent on his father’s name or fortune. And he’d established a reputation for excellence in his career “annoying the king’s enemies” at sea and in cases such as this, working as an assassin for the Crown.

He was good at what he did, and he was happy doing it. But in all the years he’d spent at sea, this storm was the worst he ever encountered. They’d tried to run to the west and get around it, but to no avail. Even so, they might have ridden it out, but then the rigging had begun to come down around them.

He remembered trying to avoid the boom that broke free. The next thing he knew, he was in the sea, thrashing in deep waters before it all went black.

How did he survive? Ah, the lad!

Rob’s last memory was of a boy, not half his size, pulling him to the surface, and saving him.

Mustering his strength now, he forced himself to sit up. He blinked the sand and salt out of his eyes. A cold gust of wind blasted him. The storm had not lessened at all. The rain was still coming down in sheets. He was soaked through and chilled to the bone. He reached for the knife he kept at his belt. Thankfully, it hadn’t been lost.

He peered around him. The sea crashed across a jagged line of rocks before sliding up a short stretch of beach. The tide was coming in. Behind him, cliffs loomed and disappeared into the mist and the darkening sky.

Not far from him, the body of a lad lay sprawled in the sand. Rob dragged himself over.

The boy was out cold, but he was breathing, at least. His blond hair was plastered across his face. He was young, his features boyish, effeminate even, with no beard or hard lines of manhood yet showing on his face. Where had this fellow found the strength to save them both?

Rob rose to his feet and looked around again. He had no idea where they were. They could have been cast up on the shore of any number of islands along the Outer Hebrides or beyond. A wave tumbled onto the beach and washed up to his boots. He had no doubt this stretch would be underwater at high tide. He had to find them shelter for the night. Promontories with sheer, un-scalable cliffs boxed in the beach on both ends, but ledges of rock at the base of the bluff running along the strand might provide a dry spot. In the murky light, it appeared that there were caves in the cliff face. That would be even better, he thought.

He hoisted the boy by his arms and tossed him over his shoulder, eliciting a cough. He’d carried sacks of feed that weighed more.

As he climbed the beach, Rob’s mind cut back again to his ship. The masts and rigging were raining down around him before he was swept overboard. He frowned, praying the vessel survived the storm. Whether it did or not, perhaps other survivors had washed ashore. At first light, he’d try to make his way to the top of the bluff above the beach, get his bearings, and look for his crew.

The mouth of a cave beneath an overhang was a welcome sight. The boy squirmed on Rob’s shoulder.

“Let me down,” he said weakly, struggling. “Let me down now.”

The thin frame was wracked with shudders, and teeth were chattering loud enough for Rob to hear it through the storm. He climbed up onto the ledge and ducked beneath the overhanging rock. On either side of the cave’s mouth, he saw driftwood and dry seaweed. That’s a good sign, he thought. They’d have a fire.

He tried to ease the boy down, but the scrawny thing slid off and fell onto the hard rock. Immediately, the boy scrambled onto his knees, retching and coughing.

Rob walked into the cave as far as the dim light coming in from the outside allowed. The place was high enough and dry enough to provide shelter from the tide and the storm. He turned around. The boy was curled up against a wall by the cave entrance, hugging his thin legs, shivering.

“There’s enough driftwood here to make a fire. What’s your name?”

Rob couldn’t hear the answer. He gathered up dried sticks and seaweed, piled them near the lad, and took out his flint and dagger.

“Your name?”

“Gavin.” He continued to shiver.

“You’re quite the brave one, Gavin. I’ll give you that.”

Shredded sea grass caught the spark and flared. Rob added seaweed that smoldered, popped, and began to burn. Steadily, he added more fuel until a small blaze lit the cave. Larger pieces of driftwood were soon popping violent sparks and throwing off blue and lavender flames.

Rob’s gaze moved over Gavin. The breeches, the boots, the tunic—they all seemed too big for the boy. Between the hair plastered over his eyes and the collar of the tunic swallowing up his chin, the lad’s face was barely visible. Whoever gave him the clothes had great expectations that he would grow into them.

“Can you feel the heat of the fire there?”

The lad nodded. His mouth and nose were now tucked behind the tops of his knees.

Rob remembered seeing the boy on deck before he’d been washed overboard. Gavin had been holding on to a sailor’s leg with all his strength until Rob arrived to help.

“What’s your job on my ship?”

“Galley help.”

Galley help, he thought, and here he’d ordered him to climb into the rigging of a tempest-tossed ship.

Gavin sounded as young as he looked, too.