Page 7 of To Claim His Highland Bride

Rowena struggled, trying desperately to turn her head away from the smell, away from the grasp Bryce had over her. She held her breath as she continued to struggle until her body rebelled, drawing a breath of the cloying concoction.

As darkness closed in, a single desperate sob escaped her. Her field of vision narrowed to blackness. Her last conscious thoughts were that she had done exactly what her brothers had feared. She’d failed to protect herself. Now she was alone with no one to help her. Not even Marcus. He hadn’t come for her. He had deserted her and left her in the hands of his cousin. A man who would exploit her for his own gain.

Chapter Three

Marcus MacDonald’s hand tightened on the tiller as the coastline of Scotland’s Neist Point came into view. The craggy basalt cliffs with their verdant green tops usually brought a sense of peace when he gazed upon them, but not this evening. With the sun setting behind him, Marcus ordered that the sails be lowered and the ropes secured. He and his men would anchor offshore overnight and proceed to Dunvegan on the morrow. Marcus needed a few hours more to decide how to proceed even though he’d been thinking about this very moment for the past six months.

“You are returning to Dunvegan a wealthy man.” Eck came to stand at the railing, leaning against it as though he had not a care in the world.

“As are you.” Marcus released his grip on the tiller as the men set the anchor.

“Are you not happy to see your sweet Rowena once more?” Eck arched a brow.

Marcus frowned. “I’ve been away from Dunvegan for six months. The man who has returned is a different man than the one who left.”

“Granted we endured hardship, but we are better men for all that we suffered.”

“Are we?” Marcus had started his journey intent on gaining his fortune through battle, as he’d done his whole life as a part of the MacDonald clan. Instead, he’d been handed a gift by a stranger, yet that gift had come with a steep price.

“We lost several men,” Eck acknowledged.

“Several men?” Marcus drew a deep breath of the salt-laden air, allowing it to calm him as it had over the past weeks when he’d thought of the loss of life his crew had endured. To die in battle was an honourable way to die. To die treasure hunting seemed reckless and foolhardy. The gold and silver they’d retrieved from a hellish grave was forever etched with the blood of those they’d lost. “We left with seven-and-seventy men and returned with only five-and-forty. Two-and-thirty men sacrificed their lives while hunting for that damn treasure.”

“What would you have done differently?” Eck straightened. “Left Jacob Thorne to die in a watery grave along with his men? To never learn about not one but two treasures that were ours for the taking?”

Marcus gazed out at the water. “Perhaps I never should have left on this tragic journey at all. I always imagined us fighting for what we would gain, to earn it with grit and honour, not to take advantage of those around us.” Over the past few months, he’d written letters to the families the dead crew members had left behind, praying the funds he and his men had recovered would somehow make up for the losses these families would endure. Now that they had reached shore, Marcus would have to deliver those letters along with a portion of the treasure. He would relive the loss of his men over again as he stared into the eyes of the dead men’s parents, widows, and children.

During many a sleepless night he’d wondered if building a future life with Rowena had been worth the sacrifice. She hadn’t forced him on this adventure, but he never would have felt the need to go if it wasn’t for her. Rowena MacLeod was used to a certain elaborate lifestyle. In order to keep her comfortable in her current way of life as his bride, she had cost him two-and-thirty men.

“You blame the girl, don’t you?” Eck asked as though reading Marcus’s thoughts. The two of them had grown close over their months at sea.

“It’s hard not to. She is the reason we left Scotland to pursue our fortunes.” Pressing his lips into a hard thin line, Marcus turned away from Eck. “I can’t help but wonder if the crazy emotions I shared with Rowena were even real, or just a bright flame of bad judgement that snuffed out shortly after we left.” He had gone weeks without thinking about her once. Should he take that as a sign?

Thank heaven her brother, Alastair, had refused to allow them to sign a betrothal agreement before Marcus had left, otherwise there would be no other way forward. Perhaps Rowena had moved on with her life during his absence. The thought brought with it a flicker of bittersweet hope.

“I can read in your eyes that you are planning and plotting. Don’t be an arse. That girl is a treasure all on her own. I would think twice before you throw her away, my friend.”

At Eck’s harsh words Marcus turned back. “You find me so easy to read?”

“After six months at your side, aye,” Eck said dryly. “But then again, if you toss her aside, she might need a shoulder to cry on. Perhaps I will volunteer for that role.”

Marcus scowled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

Eck shrugged. “If you don’t want her . . .”

“Now who’s being an arse?” Marcus asked, as a sense of reassurance came over him at the jealousy that flashed hot and quick at Eck’s suggestion. If he didn’t still care about Rowena, he wouldn’t feel that way. Would he?

“All the gold in the world cannot buy you happiness,” Eck said. “Think long and hard before you toss Rowena aside.”

Marcus’s gaze sifted to the coastline that would lead him back to Dunvegan and Rowena tomorrow. “That’s just it. I don’t know if it was true happiness I felt when I was with Rowena all those months ago.”

“Then seeing her again should either affirm what you felt was real or expose the fact it was not.”

Marcus found he was experiencing a multitude of wild emotions that took him completely off guard. Anger and frustration battled with an odd sense of guilt. “You make it sound so simple.” But he had to acknowledge that Eck was right. One look would help Marcus reconcile the image of the woman his mind had conjured over the many months with the flesh-and-blood woman he would see on the morrow.

*

At the call to arms that sounded from above, Alastair swung his leg over the side of the bed, leaving his pregnant wife, Gwendolyn, behind. He sprang to his feet, donned his shirt, then quickly folded and secured his tartan about his waist with a leather belt. Shoving his feet into his boots and securing his scabbard about his waist, Alastair bolted for the door. He raced down the stairs, heading for the courtyard. They hadn’t had an emergency at the castle for months. What could possibly be happening now?