“Ye won’t be satisfied until ye drive me clean out of my wits with worry!”

Harris traded her glare for glare.

Then, unexpectedly, one corner of his wide, mobile mouth curved into an irresistible grin. “Since we’re each bent on driving the other mad, maybe we ought to find a nice cozy lunatic asylum and settle down.”

“This is nothing to joke about.” The unbidden chuckle that burst out of Jenny belied her words. “We’re at each other all the time. Ye and I never would have made a happy match, even with all the money in the world.”

“Don’t ye believe it, lass,” Harris replied in quiet earnest. A stray ray of rising sun pierced the foliage, burnishing his hair like new copper and lighting the rich warmth of his hazel eyes.

It cost Jenny every crumb of her self-control to keep from bolting straight into his arms….

Dear Reader,

In The Bonny Bride by award-winning author Deborah Hale, a poor young woman sets sail for Nova Scotia from England as a mail-order bride to a wealthy man, yet meets her true soul mate on board the ship. Will she choose love or money? Margaret Moore, who also writes mainstream historicals for Avon Books, returns with A Warrior’s Kiss, a passionate marriage-of-convenience story and the next in her ongoing medieval WARRIOR series. Theresa Michaels’s new Western, Once a Hero, is a gripping and emotion-filled story about a cowboy who rescues a female fugitive and unexpectedly falls in love with her as they go in search of a lost treasure. For readers who enjoy discovering new writers, The Virgin Spring by Golden Heart winner Debra Lee Brown is for you. Here, a Scottish laird finds an amnesiac woman beside a spring and must resist his desire for her, as he believes she is forbidden to him.

Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historicals novel. We hope you’ll join us next month, too!

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell,

Senior Editor

The Bonny Bride

Deborah Hale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Available from Harlequin Historicals and DEBORAH HALE

Harlequin Historicals

My Lord Protector #452

A Gentleman of Substance #488

The Bonny Bride #503

In memory of my great-great-great-grandparents,

John and Ann Graham, who also fell in love on their way

to the Miramichi. And my grandfather, Edwin Graham,

who told me their story and many others, igniting my

enduring passion for the past.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Where can they be? They should be here by now.” For the tenth time in half an hour, Jenny Lennox turned from the quay of Kirkcudbright’s small harbor. Her anxious eye scanned the slate-roofed buildings of the town, searching for some sign of her traveling companions.

“Wist, wist ye now.” Jenny tried to calm herself. “I ken they’ll be here soon enough. Mr. Walker never believed in getting anywhere too soon, and his wife isn’t a hustler, either.”

Indeed, it was a running joke in Dalbeattie that the family should change their surname to Plodder. Still, on this of all days, couldn’t they have come a few minutes early?

“They should be here by now,” she insisted yet again, as though her words were an incantation to conjure the tardy Walkers out of thin air. “The tide’s coming in fast. We’ll have to board before long.”

Salty Atlantic waters swelled into the mouth of the River Nith, covering Kirkcudbright’s muddy tidal flats. A hundred and fifty years earlier, Covenanter girls no older than Jenny had been tied to stakes and drowned by the inexorable Solway tides as punishment for their religious beliefs. To this day the gulls grieved those martyred souls, wheeling and diving in the clear June sky. Their shrill keening struck a mournful counterpoint to the bass dirge of the sea.

Not I, thought Jenny, as she watched a boom of timber being floated ashore from one of the ships moored out in the channel. I’ll not be martyred—tied to some bleak upland croft and slowly drowned by a life of drudgery. From the time she could hold a broom, Jenny had taken on the work of a grown woman. Toiling side by side with her mother, she’d cooked, cleaned, spun, churned, washed and mended. Not to mention minding the ever-increasing tribe of boys her parents had bred in their high box bed. Since her mother’s death, full responsibility for the Lennox household had fallen on Jenny’s slight shoulders. Today might be her only chance to escape.

The lighter barges were already beginning to ferry cargo out to the barque St. Bride. Word had come ashore that her master meant to weigh anchor when the tide shifted, roughly two hours hence. In two hours Jenny would be on her way to the New Brunswick colony and a new, better life. If only the Walkers would hurry up and get here!

She peered up the street again. Where could they be? A huge knot clenched in Jenny’s stomach, as indigestible as her stepmother’s oatmeal porritch. It had been many hours since she’d worried down a bowlful and taken tearful leave of her brothers. The older ones had masked their moist eyes with manly gruffness. Warning her not to fall into the ocean during the crossing, they’d begged her to write often—forgetting she didn’t know how.

Wee Malcolm had clung to her skirts wailing fit to wake the dead, until manhandled into the cottage by their stepmother. If only she could have taken him with her, the babby she’d cared for like a mother ever since her own mother’s death. Sinking down onto her new brass-bound cedar trunk, Jenny bit her lips together hard between her teeth. If the Walkers didn’t soon come, she feared she might start bawling herself, pleading with her father to take her home again.

Unwelcome tears were just forming in Jenny’s eyes when she spotted a familiar figure among the Kirkcudbright townsfolk. It was not Mag Walker, a big sowdy woman who outweighed her husband by nearly two stone. Rather a slender girl, wearing a gay bonnet and fashionable traveling outfit.

“Kirstie!” Jenny hailed her friend as she dodged through the crowd on the quayside. “Ye’re a sight for sore eyes,” she exclaimed. “Don’t tell me ye’ve come all the way from Dalbeattie just to see me off?”

Kirsten Robertson was as close a friend as Jenny had made during her hardworking, restricted youth. Though her prosperous father owned Dalbeattie’s granite quarry, Kirstie was not one to put on fine airs. One day, many years back, the Robertsons’ housekeeper had brought the child along on her routine visit to buy eggs from Jenny’s mother. After the two little girls struck up an acquaintance, Kirstie insisted on coming every time. When she got older, she took over the chore herself. Jenny had always looked forward to Kirstie’s visits. They were practically her only chance to hear about school and town and the wide world beyond the Lennox farm.

“Jenny! Is it today ye’re off?” Kirstie looked pleasantly astonished to meet her friend this far from home and so dressed up. “I’ve been the fortnight with my auntie in Dumfries. I didn’t reckon ye were away for a while yet. What a bit of luck I got here to see ye off.”

“What are ye doing in Kirkcudbright, then?” Jenny asked.

Blue as the day’s clear sky, Kirstie Robertson’s eyes twinkled with mirth. “Papa drove Harris Chisholm over to catch his boat, and he made me come along. It fretted Papa something fierce when Mr. Chisholm took it into his head to emigrate. He doesn’t suppose he’ll ever find as good a manager again.”

Hearing the name Harris Chisholm made Jenny’s mouth pucker as though she’d just bitten into a crab apple. She’d often encountered Dalbeattie’s most notorious misogynist at kirk. On those occasions, he’d acknowledged her with a frosty bow and thinly veiled contempt.

“Maybe yer pa was hoping ye’d make a match with Mr. Chisholm so he wouldn’t go away,” Jenny teased her friend. A rich man’s daughter, and a very pretty one, Kirstie had her pick of suitors. However, she showed no interest in settling down anytime soon.

“Harris Chisholm!” Kirstie gave an exasperated chuckle. “Oh, he’d not be so bad if he didn’t always fix me with that lairdly stare of his. It’s plain he thinks I’m a fickle wee dolt.”

Jenny joined in her friend’s laughter. She felt strangely lightened by the knowledge that Harris Chisholm was equally uncivil to lassies far richer and better educated than she.

“Did ye happen to pass Lowell and Mag Walker on the road?” Jenny asked. “I’m to travel with them and I’m getting a mite worried they’ll not make it in time.”

Kirstie Robertson’s blithe little face took on an unwontedly sober cast. “The Lowell Walkers. Haven’t ye heard? Lowell was harnessing that foul-tempered bay of his this morning when the wretched beast up and kicked him in the leg. Broke it in three places below the knee, I heard. Poor Mag is fretted he might lose it. They’ll not be sailing today, if ever.”

“Oh.” Jenny could feel the blood draining from her face. There was no hope of persuading her father to let her make the Atlantic crossing on her own. Her brother, Ross, was second mate on the brig Bunessan. He frequently wrote home lurid tales of the shiftless degenerates who made up his crew. Before Alexander Lennox would suffer his daughter to board the St. Bride, unchaperoned, he would sell himself into indentured servitude to repay her passage money.

She should have known this was too good to be true, Jenny chided herself. It had all worked out far too easily and smoothly—until now. When Roderick Douglas had written home for a bride, the other eligible lassies in Dalbeattie had been reluctant to accept. Some felt nervous of crossing the cold, wide ocean. Others could not abide the notion of parting with their families. Jenny had jumped at the chance to wed a man she’d once adored from afar. A man who was now a prosperous shipbuilder, able to give her the refined, affluent life she craved. Why had she let herself hope for something so miraculous, only to see her dream wreck on the shoals of reality?

Setting her mouth in a resolute line, Jenny squared her shoulders. It would take more than Lowell Walker’s bad-tempered horse and her father’s strict Presbyterian propriety to keep her from her bright destiny. She would find her way to Roderick Douglas even if it meant swimming the North Atlantic!

Kirstie slipped a comforting arm around Jenny’s shoulder. “There must be someone else who’d offer to keep an eye on ye. Folks are awful good about that kind of thing. Let’s go find the agent who booked yer passage and ask him to point out the other passengers to us. There might be a family going who’d be glad of some help with their wee ones.”

Letting Kirstie lead her toward the agent, Jenny barely heard her friend’s optimistic chatter. The man shook his head regretfully when Kirstie asked about other female passengers. Mag Walker and Jenny Lennox were the only women booked aboard the St. Bride.

The agent read off the names of the other half-dozen passengers. “Gregor McKinnon, Donald Beattie, Lowell Walker, George Irving, Gavin Tweedie and Harris Chisholm.”

Fairly dancing at Jenny’s elbow, Kirstie thanked the man for his time.

“That’s a mercy,” she whispered. “For a minute I feared we were out of luck. I’ll ask Mr. Chisholm to keep an eye on ye during the crossing. Then we can just present it to yer pa like it’s all settled. Mr. Chisholm may be a man and he does have a queer way about him. Still, when all’s said and done he’s Dalbeattie born and goes to kirk every Sunday. I ken he’s the best ye can do at short notice.”

As though summoned by the deprecating remarks of his employer’s daughter, Harris Chisholm suddenly appeared, head and shoulders towering above the harborside throng. Jenny would have recognized him anywhere by his shock of auburn hair. His long, lean face might have been handsome but for the striation of scars along his jawline and his perpetual expression of cool disdain. Evidently on the lookout for Kirsten, he strode toward the girls.

Giving her friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze, Kirstie muttered out of the corner of her mouth, “Let me do the asking. I’ve yet to meet the man I couldn’t talk ’round.”

“Thank ye, Kirstie, but I’ll speak to Mr. Chisholm myself.” Jenny held her head high and tried to swallow the lump of dismay in her throat. Wasn’t it just like life, to play this kind of cruel joke? Placing the power over her whole future into the hands of a man who despised her.

It took Harris a moment to recognize the well-dressed young lady standing beside his employer’s daughter. He wished Old Mr. Robertson hadn’t insisted on bringing Kirsten along. Harris had the uncomfortable conviction that, behind her twinkling blue eyes, the irrepressible creature was laughing at him.

As he steeled himself to speak to the ladies, Miss Robertson’s companion looked up at him. It was a gaze of singular scrutiny, as though he, Harris Chisholm, was the only man of consequence in the world. Never had he beheld or imagined a woman as lovely as Jenny Lennox looked at that moment.

He’d only ever seen her in a work dress and apron, or in her severe Presbyterian Sunday best. Today she wore a traveling gown and a matching pelisse of royal-blue. Trimmed with paler blue ribbons, her deep-brimmed straw bonnet served to focus his eyes upon her face.

The classic regularity of her features put him in mind of several white marble sculptures he’d seen in Edinburgh. How much more alluring such a visage looked in living color. Her skin had a luminous quality compounded of roses and cream. The pert delicacy of her upper lip contrasted bewitchingly with her full, almost pouty, lower lip. The warm red of ripe strawberries, together they made an eminently kissable combination. It was her gaze that held Harris transfixed, though. Whether by some fortunate reflection from her blue dress or the azure sky, her wide gray eyes had taken on a striking violet cast.

“Might I have a word with ye, Mr. Chisholm?” Her voice held more than a hint of asperity. Harris realized that, while he’d been gaping at her with such blatant admiration, Jenny Lennox had been speaking to him. Lost in the contemplation of her beauty, he hadn’t heard a word.

“What’s that?” Harris strove to compose his expression into proper gravity. “Ye’re a ways from home today, Miss Lennox.”

“I am,” she replied, “and mean to go farther. I have a great favor to ask of ye, Mr. Chisholm.”

So that was it. She wanted something. Why else would such a bonny lass look at him with anything less than aversion? He should be accustomed to it by now. Women always brought out the worst in him. Pretty young women like Jenny Lennox in particular. He’d grown up on a lonely hill croft north of Dalbeattie, with no one but his father and grandfather for company. Women were as foreign to him as creatures from another star. The only females of his intimate acquaintance lived in the pages of Walter Scott’s novels—Flora MacIvor, Diana Vernon, and Ivanhoe’s Rowena.

In dreams nurtured by Scott’s epic romances, Harris had often imagined how sweet it might be to have a woman look at him tenderly, speak to him lovingly. When instead the lassies drew back in fright—or worse, pity—it hurt him. Out of his pain and anger he spoke coldly, or sharply.

That only made matters worse. He’d be much better off living in a place with as few women as possible, and those few safely married to other men. New Brunswick, a northern frontier colony across the Atlantic, would fill the bill perfectly. Without the distraction of pretty girls to fuel his hopeless fantasies, he could channel his abilities into the quest to make something of himself.

Harris felt his brows draw together and his face harden into a stern, intractable mask. Jenny Lennox appeared to sense his antagonism. Staring deep into his eyes, she willed him to look at her, to hear her out, and to grant whatever she might ask.

“It’s like this, Mr. Chisholm—I’m going to Miramichi, New Brunswick, on the St. Bride, same as ye are. Have ye heard I’m to wed Roderick Douglas?”

Refusing to let her draw him into a two-way conversation, Harris gave a stony nod.

“I meant to travel with the Lowell Walkers. Now I hear tell Mr. Walker has suffered an accident and they won’t be sailing with us after all. My father will never let me board that boat if I don’t have somebody he trusts to look out for me. There’re no other women passengers on the St. Bride and ye’re the only man aboard I’ve any acquaintance with. I need ye to promise my pa ye’ll see me safe to Miramichi.”

She paused to gulp down a breath. Harris detected a slight tremor in the ribbons of her bonnet.

“I…” The word came out in an adolescent squeak. Clearing his throat, Harris tried again, consciously modulating his voice to its accustomed deep baritone register. “It wouldn’t be fitting.”

Privately he bristled at the insult. What was he—some eunuch to be entrusted with protecting a woman from the lascivious attentions of the real men on board the St. Bride? Because Miss Lennox wanted as little as possible to do with him didn’t make him immune to her charms.

“Why not just wait and take a later boat?”

“Because…” A husky note in her voice portended tears.

Harris wanted to throw back his head and howl with vexation. As if women hadn’t enough other advantages in the age-old struggle between the sexes! The creatures could dissolve into tears at the drop of a hat, reducing a man to quivering mush.

“Because I’ve paid my passage money already,” she said. “I don’t expect the agent will want to hand it back again, just because Pa objects to my traveling alone.”

“Surely yer…intended, Mr. Douglas, can spare a few coins more for another passage.” A somewhat less positive note crept into Harris’s voice.

“Even if he would pay again, by the time I send word, I’ll have lost three months. I ken Mr. Douglas would like to wed soon. It’ll be less trouble to find himself another lass.”

Harris stood there grim and silent. Roderick Douglas would be a fool not to wait for a rare bride like this one.

“So that’s how it stands, Mr. Chisholm.” She summed up her case. “Either I sail on the St. Bride today, to be the wife of a rich man, or I go off to London to be a scullery maid in some rich man’s kitchen.”

Having uttered so dire an ultimatum, her lips unexpectedly twitched into a teasing grin. “Did ye ever fancy yerself as a fairy godfather?”

Part of Harris wanted very much to oblige her, but another part protested. Jenny Lennox embodied everything he hoped to flee. It made no sense to take him with her. “Well…”

Perhaps sensing his indecision, she brought all her powers of persuasion to bear. “Roderick Douglas is a man of influence in Miramichi. I expect he’ll be grateful to ye for helping me out. Whatever ye want—money, a job…anything. Ye’ll have only to ask and I swear I’ll do all in my power to grant it.”

She cast him a look of desperate sincerity, as though making a pact with the devil. Stung by the implied comparison, Harris opened his mouth to refuse once and for all. Then Jenny Lennox reached out and took his hand.

“Please?”

Her touch was so soft and warm. Harris could not find it in his heart to deny Roderick Douglas the chance to feel it. Perhaps he’d follow Douglas’s lead, Harris thought—make his fortune in the colonies, then send home for a bride.

“Aye. I’ll do it,” he agreed at last, with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “I’ll see ye safe to Miramichi.”

Jenny swayed slightly on her feet. For a moment Harris feared she might faint from surprise and relief. He gripped her hand to steady her. Returning his firm hold, she pumped his hand in a vigorous shake to seal their agreement.

“It’s a bargain, then. I swear I’ll be no bother to ye.”

For an instant Harris did fancy the role of fairy godfather. How often in a lifetime was one given the power to grant another person’s dearest wish? There was something rather edifying about the prospect.

“If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never be able to thank ye enough.” With those words, she lavished upon Harris a smile of such sweet esteem that he felt entirely repaid for whatever the undertaking might cost him.

The St. Bride eased out of Kirkcudbright Bay on the ebbing tide. Her passengers clustered at the taffrail to catch a final glimpse of the homeland they never expected to see again. Acutely aware of being the only woman on board, Jenny stood apart from the male passengers. She waved her handkerchief in a last farewell to her father and Kirstie.

The barque’s timbers creaked. Pulleys squealed as sailors adjusted the rigging. When the wind began to fill them, the sails flapped like giant sheets on a clothesline. Above all these noises rose the deep voice of the first mate. He bellowed instructions to his crew for the disposition of various booms, spars and sails. Several inexperienced sailors looked as puzzled as Jenny by this nautical cant. Others might have understood the orders, but appeared too overcome with the aftereffects of drink to accomplish much.

Remembering the bold, speculative stares that had greeted her arrival on the St. Bride, Jenny suddenly appreciated her father’s concern for her safety. Aware of the substantial presence of Harris Chisholm looming protectively behind her, she moved closer to him. God bless his perpetual scowl and the facial scars that gave him such an air of danger. With her fierce-looking escort, Jenny knew she was safe from anything worse than a few impudent stares.

After the barque rounded Little Ross, most of the passengers abandoned the top deck to the fresh winds off Solway Firth. Harris and Jenny lingered at the taffrail after the others had gone below decks.

“Are ye wishing ye’d waited for another boat, after all?” Harris squinted in the direction of the western horizon.

The question came a little too close to reading her mind for Jenny’s comfort. She replied with more conviction than she felt. “That was not an option, if ye’ll recall. I’m glad to be on my way to New Brunswick, and I thank ye again for making that possible. I trust ye’ll be able to look out for me.”

Her words made Harris abruptly aware of the grave responsibility he’d undertaken. “I want to make certain we’re clear on terms,” he growled. “Ye’ll not leave yer cabin for any reason unless I’m with ye. Ye’re not to let anyone in. Is that understood?”

Jenny nodded readily.

“Good.” He headed for the companionway that led to the lower decks. “We ought to find our cabins, settle in and get a bite of supper. I don’t like the looks of that sky. Unless I miss my guess, we’re in for heavy weather before we clear Ireland.”

“Just give me a minute, will ye?” Jenny begged. “Before today I’ve never been more than twenty miles from home. This is my first time on a boat.”

“Very well.” Harris tried not to let it come out as a sigh. “One minute.”

Some intuition told him to keep his eyes off her, but they refused to obey.

Untying the ribbons of her bonnet, Jenny slipped it off. Deftly she extracted several pins from her hair. It fell to her waist in rippling chestnut waves, while shorter wisps curled softly around her face. Turning into the wind, she closed her eyes as the fresh breeze billowed her hair out behind her. She looked like the carved figurehead of St. Bride on the prow of the barque—magically, gloriously come to life.

Harris did not doubt his ability to protect Jenny Lennox from any other man aboard. But was he capable of protecting his own heart from being painfully ravished by her?

Chapter Two

“Miss Lennox?” Harris called. Getting no answer, he pounded on her cabin door more insistently. “Jenny!”

As he’d predicted, a nasty gale had blown up when the St. Bride rounded the treacherous north coast of Ulster. If she’d been crossing the Atlantic in the other direction, with holds full of heavy New Brunswick timber, it would not have been so bad. As it was, running against the wind, lightly laden with mercantile goods, the barque bobbed helplessly in the heavy seas.

Beneath Harris’s feet, the deck gave a sudden violent roll, sending him crashing against the door of Jenny’s cabin. The flimsy deal boards gave way before him. He lurched into the cabin, barking his shin on something sharp and solid before sprawling onto the floor. Behind him, the cabin door banged open and shut in time to the shifting pitch of the vessel, admitting fleeting flashes of lamplight from the passage. Between those flickers, the small chamber was impenetrably dark.

Where could Jenny Lennox have gone? Harris wondered as he rubbed his smarting shin. She had agreed not to leave her cabin without him. Women, he grumbled under his breath. Making all sorts of glib promises to get their way. Then they went ahead and did as they pleased, without so much as a by-your-leave.

A low, anguished moan sounded near Harris’s right ear. Flailing out in the direction of the sound, his hand made solid contact with the clammy flesh of Jenny’s face.

“Miss Lennox, what are ye doing lying here in the dark?”

“Dying,” came a weak, raspy reply.

Beneath the pervading odors of salt water and wet wood, Harris smelled the sour stench of vomit. Masked by the darkness, he allowed himself a wry smile at Jenny’s expense. Apparently, beauty was not proof against the mundane rigors of seasickness.

He let his hand linger on her cheek. “Ye’re not going to die.”

“I want to.” The words came up on her rising gorge.

Harris dodged out of the way as Jenny leaned over the edge of her berth. For several seconds she gagged agonizingly, but with little result. When she sank back onto the pillow again, Harris bent over her. He had to lean close, to make himself heard above the thunder of waves crashing against the hull and the high, fitful whine of the wind.

“If ye can feel that bad and still make a joke, I expect ye’ll pull through,” he said gently. “Rest, now. I’ll go fetch Dr. Chisholm’s cure for ocean belly.”

“I don’t care,” Jenny whimpered. “Do what ye like with me.”

Harris almost laughed. Ye’ve no idea what I’d like to do with ye, lass, he thought to himself. If ye did, ye’d never have made me such a tempting offer, no matter how poorly ye felt. Leaning so close to Jenny, he could feel the warmth emanating from her body.

He must be daft to even entertain such fancies, Harris rebuked himself as he reluctantly pulled away from her. Minding his tender shin, he felt his way toward the door with ginger steps. Once the gale subsided, he’d have to do something about that broken latch. In the meantime, the damp air below decks had swollen the wood enough to make the door stick shut when he pulled it to.

He staggered back down the companionway a while later, lantern in hand and a book under his arm. A firm nudge from his shoulder was all it took to push Jenny’s door open again. Harris held the lantern high as he entered the cabin. He was not anxious to injure himself further, nor to pitch face-first onto the slimy floorboards.

Jenny shrank from the light, pulling a blanket over her head. “Put it out. It’s not so bad when I can’t see everything in the cabin rocking and swaying.”

Harris took his bearings. Somehow, Jenny’s brass-bound trunk had worked itself out from under her berth. It must have been the culprit responsible for his bruised shin. He cast the trunk a baleful glare and pushed it up beside the head of the berth.

“I need the light for a minute,” he told Jenny. “Then I’ll put it out.”

Her head still covered with the blanket, she did not respond. Harris hung the lantern from a hook driven into one of the ceiling beams. He found a heavy stoneware jug of water and tipped a splash of it onto his handkerchief. Securing an enamel basin against future need, he extinguished the lamp. Then he felt his way back to Jenny’s trunk, and sat down on it.

“Why don’t ye go away and leave me to die in peace?” Jenny moaned. She must have thrown off the blanket, for her words were no longer muffled.

“All part of the bargain.” Harris found her face and swiped his wet handkerchief across her forehead. “I promised yer father I’d see ye safe to Miramichi.”

Fumbling in his coat pocket, he produced a small flask. Supporting Jenny’s shoulders with one arm, he held it to her lips. “Take a sip of this. If ye can keep a bit of it down, it’ll help ye sleep. I ken that’s as much as we can do for ye tonight—let ye sleep until the storm’s past.”

She sat bolt upright, spitting a fine spray of whisky into his face. “What is that stuff? It tastes foul!”

“Fouler than what’s in yer mouth already?” Harris growled, mopping his face with the handkerchief. “For yer information, this is the finest single malt whisky—good for a variety of medicinal purposes, including the treatment of seasickness. Now drink it!”

Reluctantly she obliged. Harris could almost hear her grimace at the taste of the liquor.

“Lie back, and let that settle a minute before we try another drop.”

“I’ll never keep it down. It’s burning all the way!”

“Aye,” he replied dryly. “It’ll light a fire in yer belly, too. Now, while we’re waiting for the whisky to do its work, ye need something to keep yer mind off how miserable ye feel. If ye’d let me light the lantern again, I brought a book I could read to ye.”

“What’s the book?” she asked.

Harris thought he heard a note of longing in her voice.

“One of my favorites—Walter Scott’s Rob Roy.”

“Oh.”

Never had he heard so wistful a sound as that brief word.

“It’s no use,” Jenny said finally. “I couldn’t bear the light. Rob Roy—it sounds a brave story. What’s it about?”

“Take another drink of the whisky first.”

She submitted with a sigh of resignation. Though she gasped as the whisky went down, she did not spew it back up again. Harris took it as a sign his prescription was working after all.

Hunching forward, he brought his mouth close to Jenny’s ear so he would not have to shout above the storm. Harris began to relate the story of Frank Osbaldistone and his adventures with the outlawed Rob Roy McGregor. Now and then, he lapsed into Scott’s dramatic prose, reciting whole passages from memory. At regular intervals, he paused to prop Jenny up and administer another dose of whisky.

“Feel any better?” he asked after an hour had passed without further bouts of vomiting.

“I feel queer,” she replied in a thick, drowsy voice, “but not so bad as before.”

“I’ll go away and let ye sleep then.”

She groped for his hand. “Stay. Yer story keeps my mind off my stomach. It must be grand to be able to read books like that.”

“I’d be happy to lend ye anything I have,” Harris offered. “I expect ye haven’t had much money for books.”

Sinking back on her pillow, Jenny gave an oddly bitter laugh. “No money. No time. No learning.” She sniffled. “I fear I’ll be a right disappointment to Roderick Douglas—an ignorant farm girl who can’t read a word or write her ain name.” Her words trailed off into quiet sobs.

That would be the whisky at work, Harris decided. It often had the unfortunate side effect of making the drinker wax maudlin.

“There, there.” He wiped her face with his handkerchief. “Wist, now. Ye’ll upset yerself and end up sick to yer stomach again. It’s a daft chap who’d complain of a bonny bride like ye, Jenny Lennox.”

“What are ye doing here anyway, Harris Chisholm?” She pushed his handkerchief away. “I ken ye reckon I’m stupid and common. I’ve seen ye look down yer long nose at me often enough. Go ’way, now. I don’t need yer drink, nor yer stories, nor yer pity, neither.”

Harris could hear her moving about in the narrow berth—turning her back on him, most likely. For a moment he sat, not knowing what to say or do. He’d always thought of pretty girls as heartless, impervious creatures. It had never occurred to him that they might have easily bruised feelings or entertain the same kinds of self-doubt that plagued him. It came as an unpleasant revelation that his bristling demeanor, intended as a purely defensive measure, might have wounded one of their number.

If the light had been shining and Jenny not addled and half-asleep from the whisky, Harris would never have said what he said next. “I reckon nothing of the kind. Ye oughtn’t mind me, anyhow. I ken well enough there’s no lass’ll want anything to do with me. It saves my pride a mite to pretend I don’t care. I’d no notion to offend ye, and I beg yer pardon if I have.”

He felt a sudden need to make amends. “We’ve a good five or six weeks more at sea…”

Jenny groaned at the very thought.

“It’ll not all be as bad as this, I hope,” Harris continued. “Once this squall passes and ye find yer sea legs, I could teach ye to read, if ye’ve a mind to learn.”

The bedclothes rustled again as she turned toward him. “I’d love to. It’s something I’ve always wanted. I used to envy my brothers when they went off to school. Since I was the only girl, Ma couldn’t spare me. One winter I pestered Ian to teach me, but we didn’t make much headway. I was always that worn-out at night, I’d fall asleep over my books before I could learn anything.”

Harris wondered whether she realized he was still listening, or whether she had fallen to reminiscing aloud. He heard the plaintive, hungry edge in her voice.

Apparently she had not forgotten him, for suddenly she asked, “Why do ye want to put yerself to all the bother?”

“We fairy godfathers like to do a thorough job.” Harris chuckled. “It’s a point of professional pride, ye ken. Any other wishes ye’d like me to grant while I’m about it? Straw spun into gold? Pumpkin turned into a fine coach?”

“If ye can teach me to read, and see me safe wed to Roderick Douglas, ye’ll have made me the happiest lass in the world. I only hope ye don’t plan to ask for my firstborn as payment.”

“Would that be a problem, then?” Harris asked facetiously. “I recollect ye promised me anything in yer power to grant, with no provision exempting yer firstborn. I can amend the contract, but it’ll mean charging an added penalty.”

Jenny did not reply immediately. Harris wondered if he had strayed into uncomfortably familiar territory with his jest about her future offspring. The wind had audibly lessened, he noticed in that moment of silence. The pitch and roll of the barque had also slackened to a gentler undulation.

“I’ll pay yer penalty with a wee spell of my ain,” Jenny said at last. “I’ll turn ye into the kind of charming gentleman who can have his pick of the lassies.”

Harris laughed outright. “If ye can perform that kind of magic, ye’d better mind they don’t burn ye for a witch, lass.”

“I’ll give ye yer first lesson right now,” she murmured. “The next time ye speak to a woman, pretend ye’re in the dark and she’s a mite tipsy with her first taste of strong drink. Then ye talk to her just like ye’ve talked to me tonight—soft and kindly. After five minutes, I wager she’ll not even notice those scars on yer face.”

Jenny woke to the sound of footsteps and voices in the companionway. Fine shafts of sunshine squeezed into the cabin through chinks in the deadlight. Morning had dawned, and the gale had passed. Her stomach still felt queasy, but infinitely better than it had the previous night. This relief was offset by the dull pain that throbbed in her forehead.

Quite nearby, she heard a man snoring. The walls between the cabins must be as thin as paper, she grumbled to herself. Rolling over in the tight quarters of her berth, she came nose to nose with Harris Chisholm, snoring serenely with his head resting on her pillow.

“Mr. Chisholm, what are ye still doing here?” Jenny shrank back into the corner of the berth, gathering the blankets protectively over her chest.

Harris sat up on her trunk, pulling his head and torso off their resting place on the berth. “Where? What?” He peered around the cabin through half-closed eyes. When they focused on Jenny, he gave a visible start.

“I must’ve fallen asleep telling ye the last of Rob Roy.” He yawned and stretched his long arms.

“Do ye know what this means? If word gets out that I’ve been entertaining ye in my cabin all night, my reputation’ll be ruined. Roderick Dhu will never have me for a wife! How could ye let this happen?”

“I?” Harris drew himself up indignantly. “Ye were the one who begged me to stay. ‘Do what ye like with me,’ ye said. ‘Stay and tell me more of the story,’ ye said. Ye reckoned ye were going to die of the seasickness but I nursed ye through it. And this is the thanks I get. Bawling at me like a fishwife. Making it sound as though I forced my way into yer cabin and attacked ye in the night!”

“Ye did bust down my door!” Jenny accused him.

“That was an accident, and well ye know it. Now keep yer voice down, woman, or ye’ll have the whole crew onto us. We both know nothing happened last night to sully yer fair reputation—unless ye count puking on my shoes and spitting whisky into my face.” Harris started to laugh at the thought.

In spite of herself, so did Jenny.

“I’ll keep mum about my being here if ye will, and no one the wiser,” Harris assured her. “Besides, if it does get back to Roderick Dhu and he jilts ye over it, I promise to make an honest woman of ye.”

Jenny seized her pillow and fetched Harris a solid clout on the ear. “If ye do anything to queer my wedding with Roderick Dhu, Harris Chisholm, I won’t marry ye supposing ye’re the last he-creature in North America!”

Fortunately, Harris was able to steal out of Jenny’s cabin that morning without being caught. The crew was too busy assessing storm damage, while the other passengers were dealing with their own seasickness in varying degrees. Later that day, in a show of innocent concern, he helped the ship’s carpenter repair Jenny’s broken door latch.

Jenny kept to her cabin all that day, with the excuse of recovering from her bilious attack. When she finally emerged the following morning, she treated Harris with the frosty politeness reserved for particularly odious strangers. To his surprise and amusement, Harris found himself unable to take offense. When one had nursed a woman through a bout of seasickness, Harris discovered, the lady in question—no matter how attractive—permanently lost her ability to intimidate a fellow.

It might also have been partly due to Jenny’s admission of her own inadequacies. Perhaps it owed to his status as her protector. Whatever the reason, Jenny Lennox had pitched headfirst off her pedestal. Harris found it an odd and rather heady experience, being on equal footing with a woman. As he might never enjoy such a novelty again, he decided to make the most of it while it lasted.

He gave Jenny precisely forty-eight hours to grow tired of her own company. Then he made his overture.

“Do ye plan to give over snubbing me before we get to Miramichi?” he asked with good-natured disinterest, as he escorted her back from breakfast.

She appeared to have trouble preserving a straight face. “Ye ken my snubbing ye for two days squares yer snubbing me for years?” Her eyebrow cocked in an expression of bewitching arrogance.

“No.” His mouth twitched with the effort to suppress a smile. “But I ken feeding ye all my good whisky, and resisting the urge to brag of spending the night in yer company, does weigh heavy on the balance.”

“Keep yer voice down!” Jenny glanced nervously around to see if anyone had overheard. She must have decided there was no one within earshot, for her expression grudgingly softened.

“I ken there’s some truth to what ye say.” She held out her hand. “I’m willing to make peace if ye are.”

Harris grinned. “It’s a bargain.”

He shook her hand. It was not soft or dainty, but roughened by years of work. More eloquently than any spoken plea, it told Harris of the life she longed to leave behind.

“It’ll be a relief to have someone to talk to.” She looked genuinely relieved. “Who’d have thought after twenty years of slaving away from dawn till dusk, I’d get sick of idleness after only two days. Time hangs heavy on yer hands when ye’ve nothing to do.”

“I stand behind my offer to teach ye to read,” said Harris. “A good book’s the best antidote for boredom I can recommend. While we’re about it, ye can instruct me in the gentle art of charming the ladies, like ye promised.”

“We’d better get busy.” An amethyst twinkle gleamed in Jenny’s gray eyes. “If I’m to teach ye some manners before we land in Chatham, there’s not a moment to lose!”

Chapter Three

“The…con-dit-ion…” Jenny sounded out the unfamiliar arrangement of letters.

“Condition,” Harris prompted.

“Oh, aye.” Her eyebrows drew together in a grimace of intense concentration as she attacked the passage once more. “The condition of the English nation was at this time…suf…suf…”

“Sufficiently miserable.” Harris helpfully supplied the last two words of the sentence.

“It’s no use.” Jenny blew out an exasperated sigh, which stirred the lock of hair curling over her brow. “I’ll never be able to read like ye can, Harris. I fear I’m an awful dunce.”

“Nonsense,” he protested. “It took me years to read as well as ye can after only a fortnight. Ye’re a clever lass, Jenny.”

The compliment warmed her more than she cared to admit. She pretended to dismiss it with a derisive wave of her hand. “Get away with ye!”

Tutor and scholar nestled in their usual perch—a short flight of wide, shallow steps leading up to the poop deck. These seldom-used side steps made a convenient retreat for Jenny’s reading lessons, out from underfoot of the crew. They had the added advantage of receiving shade from the spanker in the morning, and from the mainsail for the rest of the day.

Of late, shade had become a rare commodity on the St. Bride. Ever since that inauspicious gale at the outset of their journey, the North Atlantic weather had turned unusually clement. The wind had died to a light, fitful breeze, while the lazy waves rocked the barque as gently as a baby’s cradle. Day after day, the sun beamed down from a canopy of deep, tranquil blue. Filmy clouds floated high in what the master of the St. Bride called a “mackerel sky.”

“Ye’d likely have learned quicker with an easier book.” Harris leaned back from his seat two steps below Jenny. He cast an apologetic glance at the fat volume of Ivanhoe lying open on her lap. “Other than the Bible, I fear Mr. Scott’s books are all I could afford to bring with me.”

“Don’t fret yerself.” Jenny felt her natural optimism rebounding. “I know the Bible well enough already. I like these stories. I’d far rather read a book that’s hard but interesting, than one that’s easy but dull.”

Harris grinned. “Aye, there’s sense in that.”

They had finished Rob Roy a few days ago. First, Jenny struggled through the opening pages of each chapter, then Harris rewarded her efforts by reading the rest aloud to her. Between chapters, they discussed the story and the characters. Harris would explain any pertinent historical background.

The high adventure and heroic romance of the stories intrigued Jenny no end. At night they figured in her dreams, the heroes all looking and sounding strangely like Harris.

Every morning, Jenny hurriedly dressed and bolted her breakfast, eager to tackle another chapter. Thanks to Walter Scott and Harris Chisholm, whole new vistas of thought and experience were opening before her. Never in her life had she felt so completely alive.

“Hallo!” called a voice from aloft. “How goes the lessons, Miss Lennox?”

Jenny waved up at Thomas Nicholson, the apprentice boy who was nimbly scaling the ratlines on the mizzenmast.

“Oh, it’s coming, Thomas,” she called. “Not fast, but it’s coming.”

“Don’t listen to her, Thomas,” Harris countered. “Miss Lennox has brains to match her beauty. Why, I could make an Edinburgh lawyer out of her in six months.”

With a cheery salute, the boy returned to his work. Captain Glendenning kept men aloft all hours of the day, adjusting the sails continually to catch the faint, fitful winds. As the unpromising weather had improved since the early days of the voyage, so had the crew of the St. Bride.

A rigorous stickler for discipline, the master had taken a hard line with slackers and insubordinates. Any sailor who failed to pull his weight soon found himself scouring the deck with salt water and holystone, under the blazing sun. Diligent sailors found the St. Bride a soft billet. They ate better than the usual forecastle diet of hardtack and salt beef, and the captain used a liberal hand doling out their daily rum ration.

Discovering Jenny had a champion in the tall, menacing person of Harris Chisholm, the sailors had quickly come to treat her with respectful deference. It helped matters further when word got around that she was on her way to wed a rich shipbuilder in the port of their destination. Any sailor who planned to jump ship and look for work in Miramichi might hope for a good reference from Miss Lennox.

Returning to the text of the novel, Harris searched out more obscure words that might present a problem for Jenny’s novice reading skills.

“Brains to match my beauty?” she scoffed.

Though Harris continued to stare at the book, his ears reddened. “Should I not practice my lessons, too?” he asked innocently.

“Lessons? Ah, yer charm lessons.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Harris he was already a mite too charming for his own good—or hers. Instead she spoke tartly. “The most important lesson I can teach ye about flattery is don’t lay it on too thick.”

“‘He lived long and happily with Rowena,”’ Jenny read about Wilfred of Ivanhoe, “‘for they were attached to each other by bonds of early affection and they loved each other the more from recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union.”’

The evening light was quickly fading and Jenny wanted to finish the book before she went to bed. Harris had promised they could start Waverley the next day.

“‘Yet it would be inquiring too curiously to ask whether the recollection of Rebecca’s beauty and magna…magnan…”’

“Magnanimity.”

“‘Magnanimity,”’ Jenny repeated, “‘did not recur to his mind more frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have approved.”’

She read the final paragraph without further prompting from Harris. Then Jenny closed the cover with a thud of triumph.

“It was a bonny story,” she said. “Except that Ivanhoe should have married Rebecca.”

Harris cast her a sidelong glance, one brow arched expressively.

“He should,” she insisted. “There was more between Sir Wilfred and Rebecca. Mind how she nursed him after Ashby and how he fought the Templar to save her from burning at the stake?”

The lilt of music and laughter drifted back from the foredeck. Off watch, the crewmen often gathered there in the evenings to tell stories, sing and drink their watered-down rum.

Harris nodded in the direction of the forecastle. “Care to go up and join in the festivities?”

Flushed with the exhilaration of finishing her second book, Jenny accepted the invitation eagerly. She and Harris made their way forward and hovered on the fringes of the gathering. The sailors sat or stood in a rough circle, a few lounging against the rails, some perched in the rigging.

The air throbbed with an infectious, rollicking beat. Callused palms clapped together. Bare feet slapped against the planks of the deck. Wooden spoons drummed a tattoo on the lids of the bilge barrels. Above the chorus of deep male voices piped the spritely trill of a tin whistle. Jenny recognized the tune but not the words, which recounted the charms of the women in various ports of call. She soon found herself clapping in time to the music. The singing ended with a loud, joyous whoop.

“Chisholm! Miss Lennox! Come join us,” called the burly boatswain. With a flick of his thumb, he motioned a young seaman to vacate his seat on a sawed-off cask so Jenny could sit down. “We’ll mind our language, ma’am,” he assured her.

“Pay me no mind.” She waved away all worries of propriety. “I’ve seven brothers, so I’m used to the way men go on.”

As if taking Jenny’s reply as his cue, Tom Nicholson raised the tin whistle to his lips and began to blow another rousing tune. One of the many Irish fighting songs, it gradually picked up a lusty chorus. Several similar songs followed. Then someone called for a jig. The apprentice boy obliged by piping up a lively air. Two young crewmen were pushed into the midst of the circle. After an awkward start, they soon picked up the rhythm and broke into a nimble step.

One of the dancers reached down and caught Jenny by the hand. Hauling her to her feet, he began to spin her about the deck in time to the exuberant music. She’d only danced once before—a few tentative steps at a cousin’s wedding. This was altogether different. Her feet moved over the gently swaying deck with an impetuous ease all their own. The sweet, vibrant music pulsed in her veins. Her partner whirled her off into another pair of arms.

A hectic flush crept into Jenny’s cheeks. She spun away to a third partner and a fourth. Strands of her hair escaped their confining pins, as though anxious to take part in the revelry. She could only toss her wayward curls and laugh, delighting in the wild joy of the moment as the music built towards its feverish climax. The crewmen greeted her performance with noisy approval, clapping and whistling.

Laughing with what little breath she had left, Jenny subsided dizzily against her partner.

“Roderick Douglas won’t care how well ye read, when ye can dance like that, lass.” Warm with admiration, Harris’s deep voice murmured in her ear.

Something told Jenny she should pull away, with a sharp rebuke to Harris Chisholm for holding her in so familiar a fashion. But she dared not let go. She was off balance. It would be too easy to fall. So she lingered in his arms longer than was seemly, anchored by his strength. Clinging to him for the few steps it took to reach her seat, she collapsed onto her improvised stool.

Some remnant of giddiness left from the dancing must have possessed her, for she slid over, patting the lid of the barrel. “There’s room for two,” she said in a breathless rush.

Without a word, Harris dropped down beside her.

High spirits exhausted, the crew’s music slowed and softened. Tom Nicholson gave his tin whistle a rest. One of the men sang a mournful, meandering ballad about an ill-fated cattle raid. Then three of the lads joined in close harmony on “Annie Laurie.” Until that night, Harris had given the extravagant love protestations of Robert Burns a rather cynical reception. The pleasant recollection of hours spent with Jenny and the unsettling awareness of her hip pressing against his gave him a new perspective.

“‘For bonnie Annie Laurie, I’ll lay me down and die.”’

Suddenly Harris could imagine what it must be like to feel that way about a woman. He wasn’t sure he cared for the idea, though. It was tantamount to putting a loaded musket into a woman’s hands and offering his heart for target practice. What if the fickle, perfidious creature pulled the trigger?

“Will you give us a song, Miss Lennox?” one of the men asked at the conclusion of “Annie Laurie.” “There’s some just don’t sound right unless they’re sung by a woman.”

“Aye, like ‘Barbrie Allen,”’ another crewman piped up.

“Nah, not that one.” The boatswain pretended to blubber into his handkerchief. “It always sets me bawlin’. Boohoo-hoo!”

“I’ll go easy on yer tender heart,” Jenny assured the boatswain. Laughter bubbled musically beneath her words. “How about ‘Lizzie Lindsay’? That one ends happily enough.”

“Aye, it’s a sweet tune,” agreed Tom Nicholson. He raised his tin whistle and began to play.

Harris had to agree with the boy’s assessment. The music floated on the night breeze, softly melodic. It had a haunting quality that warned Harris he’d be hearing it in his dreams and humming it for days to come. Beside him, Jenny began to sing.

“‘Will ye gang tae the hielands, Lizzie Lindsay?

Will ye gang tae the hielands wi’ me?

Will ye gang tae the hielands, Lizzie Lindsay,

My bride and my darlin’ tae be?”’

In the next verses, Lizzie’s mother and sister told how they’d eagerly elope with the handsome stranger, if only they were the right age. Miss Lizzie proved a lass of more practical bent. She had no intention of being swept off her feet by a man she knew nothing about.

Harris sat there drinking in the music of Jenny’s high, clear voice. Every note rang with a sweet purity, as though pealed by a golden bell. Each one set echoes resonating in his heart.

In the next-to-last verse, Lizzie’s suitor revealed himself as the powerful Highland laird, Ranald MacDonald. Discovering his identity had a marked effect on the young lady’s scruples.

“‘Lizzie kilted up her coats of green satin,

She kilted them up to her knee.

Now she’s off with Lord Ranald MacDonald,

His darlin’ and his bride to be.”’

As the last golden note died away, the crew broke into a warm round of applause, calling for Jenny to sing again.

“Another time, gentlemen.” She stood and executed a dainty curtsy. “For now, I must beg ye to excuse me. If I don’t soon get to my bed, I fear I’ll fall asleep sitting here.”

When Harris rose to accompany her, Jenny motioned him back good-naturedly. “Ye needn’t leave on my account. Stay and enjoy yerself. I can find my cabin well enough by now.”

He followed her anyway, after a parting wave to the sailors of the St. Bride. When he caught up with Jenny, Harris found her leaning against the afterdeck railing. Silhouetted by the bright moonlight, her loose tendrils of hair wafted on the sea wind in a most bewitching fashion. He stood mute, watching her commune with the ocean, with the night, and with her future.

At last he spoke up. “Yer singing sounded pretty.” He could not keep himself from humming part of the tune.

Though she’d given no sign of knowing he was there, Jenny did not startle at his words. She replied matter-of-factly. “Kirstie taught me that song.” Her voice took on a note of private remembrance. “We used to argue over it all the time.”

“Argue over a song?”

“Aye. Kirstie said it wasn’t very romantic for Lizzie to quiz her beau about his prospects. She said the lass should’ve accepted Lord Ranald before she found out who he was.”

Perhaps Kirsten Robertson had a crumb of sense in her pampered golden pate, after all.

“Ye disagreed?”

Jenny gave a derisive sniff. “I should say so. Lizzie Lindsay was a wise lass. It’s as easy to love a rich man as a poor one. A sight easier to stay in love with him after the courting and the wedding, too.”

“Do I hear the voice of experience?” Harris asked quietly. He had the feeling Jenny was talking more to herself than to him.

“Aye.” It was a small word to hold so much bitterness. “There’s nothing romantic about working yerself to death to make ends meet. Worrying how ye’ll scrape together a few bawbies to pay the doctor bill. Flowery dreams are well enough, but they wither fast in a cold wind.”

“Ye do love this Roderick Douglas, though. It’s not just his money?”

“I used to sit in kirk and watch him,” murmured Jenny. “He was that handsome, with his dark hair and dark eyes. He had such a fine, confident way of moving and speaking. Ye just knew he’d go places and do grand things. Wedding him will be my dream of a lifetime come true.”

Harris listened as Jenny recounted the merits of her future husband. With a pang of regret, he realized that he could never measure up to her ideal.

“Ye ought to get some sleep.” He didn’t mean them to, but the words came out as a gruff command.

“Aye.” Her reply floated on the wind like a sigh. Turning from the rail, Jenny picked a cautious path to the companionway. Harris dogged her footsteps like a morose shadow.

At the door to her cabin, she turned to him. “We’ll start reading Waverley tomorrow. Good night, Harris. I had a fine time this evening.”

Before he could turn away, she raised herself on the tips of her toes and planted an impulsive kiss on his cheek. It landed a little low of the mark, brushing against the scars on his jawline. Harris opened his mouth to say something. Before he could get anything out, Jenny bolted into her cabin and firmly closed the door in his face.

Chapter Four

“Where are we now?” Jenny peered around Harris, toward a distant smudge of land perched on the horizon.

After six weeks at sea, she felt as though she’d always lived on a boat, instinctively adjusting her walk to the roll and pitch of the deck. For the longest time there had been no tangible evidence they were getting closer to their destination. Captain Glendenning had his chronometer, of course, and something he called “dead reckoning.” As far as Jenny could tell, they might have been sailing in circles around the Atlantic.

Then, suddenly, there it was. Land. It beckoned Jenny with promises of her new life.

“Ye’ve asked me that same question every hour since yesterday when we hailed that Nantucket whaler,” Harris snapped, without even bothering to look at her. “We’re an hour closer than we were the last time ye asked.”

Abruptly he pulled back from the bow railing and stalked off without a further word. Jenny, who’d been leaning against him, lurched forward, barking her shin in the process.

“Now what’s got into him?” she grumbled, rubbing her injured leg. “Much good it’s done, my trying to teach him some manners.”

In the past twenty-four hours, Harris Chisholm had reverted to his old sullen self. Brusque, unapproachable…downright rude at times, Jenny would have been quite happy to leave that Harris Chisholm back home in Scotland. Harris, the patient teacher. Harris, the enthralling storyteller. Harris, the endlessly stimulating companion. Where had he gone?

“We’re offshore of Nova Scotia, Miss Lennox.” The master of the St. Bride appeared at Jenny’s elbow. He pointed westward, at a slight indentation in the irregular strip of coastline. “We’re making for a wee channel that cuts between the mainland and the Island of Cape Breton. It’ll take a day or more off our journey, not having to sail all the way around Cape Breton.”

“Do all the ships from Miramichi go that way?” Jenny asked, Harris Chisholm temporarily forgotten. She was eager to learn as much as possible about shipbuilding and seafaring, so she could discuss those subjects knowledgeably with her betrothed.

Captain Glendenning shook his head. “Canso’s a treacherous passage in foul weather or with an inexperienced crew. We’ll get through her fine today, though. I can smell a squall brewing in the sou’west, but we’ll be well through Canso afore she hits. With any luck she’ll hold off until we make harbour at Richibucto. The shoals and sandbars at the mouth of the river are dangerous enough in fine weather. More than one ship I’ve lost…”

“Richibucto?” Jenny asked, with a mixture of annoyance and alarm. “I thought we were destined for the Miramichi.”

“So we are, lass. So we are,” the master reassured her. “We only stop in Richibucto a day or two—more’s the pity.”

Jenny cast him a questioning look.

“It’s my home port,” Captain Glendenning explained. “Got a little farm near there, where my wife and family live. I won’t get much chance for a visit with them this time. Though I may be able to help my brother-in-law get some hay in.”

“It must be hard for yer wife, having ye away from home so much,” said Jenny.

The captain shrugged, but she detected a slight flinch in his craggy, weathered features. “It costs money to build up a good farm. Money for seed, tools and stock. A man can make good pay with his master’s papers. Besides,” he owned, somewhat sheepishly, “I’m one of those bootless fellows with salt water for blood. Every winter I say I’m done with it, going to settle down on the farm for good. Then come spring, when all the wee shipyards on the river launch their new crop of barques and brigantines, I get bitten by the sea bug again, and I’m off.”

Jenny had to admit the attractions of the life Captain Glendenning described. In six short weeks, she’d come to feel quite at home on the St. Bride. She loved the clean tang of the ocean breeze, and the rhythmic slap of the waves against the hull that lulled her to sleep each night. When a freak easterly filled the barque’s sails and sent her bousing along with her rigging taut and straining, something in Jenny’s soul stirred with a sense of expectancy and adventure.

“If you’ll excuse me, Miss Lennox.” The captain touched the peak of his cap. “There’s a few things I must see to, before we make Canso.”

Jenny excused Captain Glendenning with a cheery smile. At the moment her heart brimmed with goodwill toward the whole human race. By nightfall they’d be through the Strait of Canso, heading for a short stopover at Richibucto and then on to the Miramichi. Impossible as it had once seemed, her dream was coming true. Thinking of her dream made Jenny remember the man who had made it a reality.

“Thomas,” she called up to the apprentice boy scaling the rigging. “Any sign of Mr. Chisholm?” If Harris was on deck at all, Thomas Nicholson could easily spot him from aloft.

“Back by the poop deck, Miss Lennox,” the boy yelled down.

So Harris was waiting for her in their outdoor school. That was it, Jenny decided in a flash of insight. Preoccupation with the end of their journey had made her forget her reading lessons. That was why Harris had spoken to her so impatiently. She’d sensed his enjoyment of their studies together. It must be a marvelous feeling to open another person’s mind to the world of books and knowledge. One day she would pass along the precious gift Harris had given her, by teaching others to read.

She must settle down and concentrate on her lessons, Jenny chided herself as she went in search of Harris. For one thing, it would help make these last anxious days pass more quickly. Besides, she should enjoy it while she could. Soon there would be no more lessons. No more stimulating discussions. No more good-natured arguments. Somehow, that thought cast a dark cloud over Jenny’s dream of a sunny future.

Harris sprawled on the steps of the poop deck, gazing blindly at the pages of Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian, open before him. He knew enough anatomy to realize that the human heart was merely a muscle pumping blood through the body. Yet he could understand why people had once believed it to be the seat of emotion. Love, in particular. For when love went awry, as it invariably did, it left a heavy weight pressing down on one’s chest. With every beat came a twinge of pain.

Harris heaved a sigh that started somewhere in the region of his toes. He’d been right, back in Dalbeattie, to avoid women. The creatures were nothing but trouble. Not knowing what he might be missing, he’d felt a certain restlessness, a vague sense of discontent. Now his longing had a focus—Jenny. That focus served to concentrate and hone the feeling, until it was heavy enough and sharp enough to lance his heart.

Day after day he’d sat beside her, their hands sometimes brushing or their eyes meeting over the pages of a book. She had a way of looking at him, with those immense heather-colored eyes, that made Harris feel he was the font of all received wisdom. A sage. A hero. Capable of any daring exploit. Her soft, musical voice had wrapped itself around his heart and invaded his dreams.

Jenny Lennox was everything a woman should be—an amalgam of the best of Scott’s romantic heroines. As beautiful as Rowena, as tender as Rebecca, as spirited as Flora MacIvor. And Harris had promised to deliver her to another man. With the date of delivery rapidly approaching, Jenny was eager for it to come. Only one other time in his life had Harris felt so abjectly miserable.

He had no one to blame but himself. He should have known better than to fall in with Jenny’s plan. Six weeks spent with any lass in the close quarters of this barque—had she been half as bonny as Jenny and one-tenth as good-natured—a man would still likely have developed feelings for her. How could he have been so daft?

Well, the time had come to cut his losses. Bandage up his poor mauled heart and buffer it against any worse abuse at the deft, gentle, deadly hands of Jenny Lennox. Harris felt his features freeze into his old intractable mask.

“Harris?” Jenny offered him a conciliatory smile. She was graciously willing to overlook his recent churlish behavior. “Am I late for lessons?”

He didn’t move aside to offer her accustomed seat. Glancing up absently, Harris looked as though he’d been thinking of something else and had scarcely heard her.

“Captain Glendenning says we’ll be through the Strait of Canso by nightfall,” Jenny informed him. “If I promise to concentrate and not go tearing off to the railing every five minutes, do ye think we stand a chance of getting through this next book before we reach the Miramichi?”

“There’s nothing more I can teach ye.” He thrust the book at her. “All ye need now is practice. It’s a sight quicker to read it yerself than to read aloud. If ye keep at it, I’ve no doubt ye’ll get it finished in time.”

Jenny just stood and stared at him. She could not have been more taken aback if Harris had hurled the heavy volume at her head.

“I…I ken ye’re probably right,” she finally managed to say. “It’s just, I enjoy talking the story over with ye, Harris. Ye’re a dab hand at explaining all the parts I don’t understand.”

“Aye, well…” His expressive brows drew together and his lip curled in a frown of distaste. “I fear I won’t have time, Miss Lennox. As ye’ve pointed out quite frequently in the past twenty-four hours, we’ll soon be reaching our destination. I have plans to make.” He waved a hand airily. “Important considerations to review.”

Miss Lennox, was it now? A wonder she didn’t get frostbitten by Mr. Chisholm’s chilly politeness. Jenny composed her face into a mirror image of his haughty expression. She felt a little sick flutter in her stomach. Curse these choppy offshore waters. Her eyes were beginning to sting as well. Blast this briny wind!

“I’d hate to be responsible for taking up yer valuable time, sir. Not when ye have grand plans to make and important decisions to consider.” She snatched the book from his hand. “I’ll remind ye, though…this business of teaching me to read was yer idea, not mine. So ye can quit acting like I’ve imposed on ye.”

Harris refused to meet her challenging stare. “I only thought it was time for ye to get used to reading on yer own. Ye soon won’t have me around to read with.”

Contemplating that prospect made Jenny’s knees tremble. This whole upset, this sudden unexplained hostility between them, provoked a battery of strange and unwelcome emotions in her. Damn Harris Chisholm for getting her all riled up!

“No doubt ye’re looking forward to having me off yer hands,” she said coldly.

“Now, Jenny, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

“Oh didn’t ye, indeed? I’m sure ye’re too polite to come right out and say so. All the same, ye must be relieved I’ll soon trouble ye no further.”

“Now see here…”

“I’m willing to absolve ye of all responsibility here and now,” Jenny pressed on, proud that she’d been able to marshal a couple of impressive words from her growing vocabulary. “I’ve nothing to fear from any man on this vessel. My father’s a thousand miles away. He’ll never know the difference. Consider yer duty honorably discharged and we can go our separate ways.”

A battalion of gulls careened in the sky above the barque’s mainmast, screeching shrilly at one another. Before Harris had a chance to reply, Jenny spun about on her toe and flounced off. She clutched the weighty tome of Walter Scott’s prose to her heart like a protective shield.

In her dark, cramped little cabin, Jenny made a stubborn effort to read by the wildly swaying beam of her lantern. Her lips moved as she scanned each line of print, clamping together angrily when she came upon an unfamiliar word.

Blast Harris Chisholm straight to Hades! Jenny’s strong, slim fingers tightened around the pages of the book. She’d felt a connection with him, a friendship even sweeter than the one she’d enjoyed with Kirstie Robertson. It hurt to discover he’d only been suffering her company, gritting his teeth, biding his time until they reached North America. Then he’d drop her at the feet of Roderick Douglas, like some odious parcel he was glad to be rid of.

Suddenly she noticed the tempo of footsteps quickening on the deck above. How long had she been shut in her cabin? Jenny wondered. Perhaps they had reached that Canso place already. Closing the thick book, Jenny laid it on her berth. She smoothed her skirts and pinned a wayward lock of her hair severely back in place. She’d go up and catch a closer glimpse of North America as the St. Bride sailed through the narrow strait. She’d show a certain person she was quite capable of looking after herself, and that she didn’t care a whit for his regard.

As she emerged onto the deck, squinting against the bright sunlight of late afternoon, Jenny collided with the tall, substantial person of Harris Chisholm.

“Jenny.” He grasped her by the shoulders. “Ye’ve got to get below at once.”

Drawing back from him, she fixed Harris with a stare of chilly severity. “I’ll thank ye to move out of my way, sir.”

In spite of her stiff retort, Jenny’s heart gave a traitorous leap, for Harris had called her by her first name in a tone that had lost its cold, clipped edge.

“I’ve no time to stand here arguing with ye, Jenny. Ye’re going below.” With that, he grasped her around the waist and hoisted her effortlessly over his shoulder.

“Put me down, Harris Chisholm!” Jenny flailed her feet and pounded in vain on his back. Her cries filled the narrow companionway. “Let me go this minute, ye great ruffian!”

To restrain her squirming, Harris adjusted his hold on Jenny, bringing one hand to rest on the swell of her backside. The pressure of his hand set a tight, tingly sensation quivering deep in the pit of her belly. It fueled her anger and outrage. “Let me go, or I’ll have Captain Glendenning throw ye in the brig!”

Pushing open her cabin door, Harris tossed Jenny unceremoniously onto her berth. “The captain has worse ruffians than me to contend with just now.”

“What blather are ye talking, Harris Chisholm?”

“It’s no blather. There’s pirates in the gut and they want to board us. I have to go above and do what I can to support the captain.”

“Pirates?” Jenny felt her insides twist in reef knots.

“When I shut yer door,” Harris ordered, “push yer trunk against it. Douse yer light. Don’t make a noise and don’t come out till I tell ye it’s safe.”

He had the door half-shut when Jenny called out. “Harris, for God’s sake, be careful!”

Turning back for a moment, he fixed her with a fervent look. “I’ll protect ye to my last drop of blood, Jenny.” The flimsy deal boards slammed shut behind him.

With trembling hands, Jenny pushed her trunk against the cabin door. She doubted it would hinder anyone really determined to enter. Following Harris’s instructions, she put out the cabin light and felt her way back to her berth. Crouching there in the dark, she concentrated on the noises filtering down from the deck, trying to piece together what might be happening.

She heard angry shouts but could not make out the words. Then a musket shot rang out. Jenny whimpered a desperate prayer for Harris and the crew of the St. Bride. Some heavy object rolled across the deck. More gunfire. Someone cried out in pain. Suddenly a noise like a hundred claps of thunder exploded above Jenny’s head. With a shriek, she pulled the bedclothes over her head. Her imagination boiled with lurid images of what pirates might do to a defenceless young woman.

“I can’t let them corner me here,” she muttered to herself. Better to meet her fate out in the open, where she could run—throw herself into the sea if it came to that. Nothing could be worse than cowering in the bowels of the ship—trapped.

Jenny was well down the companionway when she heard a loud cheer ring out from the deck. She emerged just in time to see a pair of small sloops making for the northern shore. Pretty pitiful pirates. Jenny gave a derisive laugh, giddy with relief. Then she caught sight of several crewmen, huddled in a knot. It took her a moment to realize they were ministering to a wounded comrade. The only visible part of the victim was one booted foot, limp and prostrate.

“Harris!” Jenny shrieked, elbowing her way through the press of sailors in a most unladylike manner. Harris lay there, motionless on the deck. His eyes were closed. His mouth hung slack. Blood soaked one arm of his shirt.

Casting herself down on the deck beside him, Jenny wrested his head into her lap. With trembling fingers, she stroked his face.

“Ye can wake up now, Harris,” she coaxed. “The pirates are gone. We’re all safe and sound. Open yer eyes for me, like a good fellow. Ye’re giving me a rare fright.”

Desperately Jenny searched the crowding faces until she found Captain Glendenning’s.

“What happened to him, Captain? He’s not dead—” her voice broke “—is he?”

Chapter Five

“Dead?” The captain gave a scratchy chuckle. “Whatever gave ye a daft idea like that, lass?”

Suspecting an unconscious, blood-covered man to be dead hardly qualified as daft, Jenny wanted to snap. Too overcome with relief to get the words out, she settled for casting Captain Glendenning a black look. She continued to stroke Harris’s face in hopes of reviving him. His skin felt cool beneath her fingers—the chill spread to Jenny’s heart.

“What happened?” she finally mastered her voice to ask.

“It was them swill-sucking bottom feeders.” The first mate jerked his head in the direction of the rapidly retreating pirate sloops. “Had the gall to open fire on us when the captain wouldn’t give ’em leave to board.”

Captain Glendenning pressed a bloodstained wad of canvas to Harris’s upper arm. “A ball winged young Chisholm here. Bleeding bad, but not serious. Just grazed the flesh, so we won’t have to cut the ball out. Cauterize it with hot pitch and—”

Jenny winced. “Must ye?”

“Aye, miss.” The first mate bared one brawny forearm to reveal a wicked-looking scar. “The pitch hurts some, but it beats letting the wound go putrid.”

“That’s enough out of ye, matie,’ the captain barked. “Can’t ye see Miss Lennox is getting a mite green around the gills.”

“If the wound isn’t serious, what’s he doing laid out cold on the deck?” Jenny demanded.

“Oh, that…”

“Will this help, Miss Lennox, ma’am?” Thomas Nicholson appeared with a small bucket of water and a cloth.

“Thanks, Thomas.” Jenny lavished upon him her warmest smile of gratitude. “Could ye hunt me up a drop of spirits, as well? It might help to bring Mr. Chisholm around.”

The boy looked doubtfully at Captain Glendenning.

“Don’t just stand there, lad.” The captain fished in his pocket and tossed the boy a heavy ring of keys. “Do as the lady says.”

“I thought the garrison from Halifax had routed out this nest of vipers,” grunted the master when young Nicholson had scurried off. “Either they made a bollocks of the job, or there’s a new crowd moved in. Lucky for us, I brought along a wee surprise for our friends.”

He nodded toward a squat little cannon lashed to the port railing. “Picked her up cheap at a foundry in Glasgow. Only a wee four-pounder, but handy enough against barracuda like that lot. Chisholm was helping haul her into place when he got hit by the musket fire. Took a clout on the head when he fell.”

Jenny pressed a wet cloth to Harris’s face. His grayish pallor alarmed her. “Shouldn’t he be waking up by now?” she asked no one in particular.

“He’ll come to when he comes to.” The captain shrugged far too casually for Jenny’s liking. “This may be as good a time as any to apply the pitch,” he added. “While he can’t feel it. That’ll bring him around, if anything will.”

It seemed to take an eternity for the cook, of all people, to prepare the hot pitch. In the meantime, Captain Glendenning ordered his men to look lively and see the barque safely through Canso before sundown. Jenny was left to keep her solitary vigil over Harris, kneeling on the hard deck with his head pillowed in her lap. Thomas Nicholson had brought her a small jug of rum, but Jenny couldn’t make up her mind to use it. Much as she wanted to satisfy herself that Harris was all right, by seeing him conscious, she shrank from the prospect of waking him in time for Captain Glendenning to cauterize his wound.

Hadn’t the poor man enough scars? Jenny mused as she ran gentle fingers over the puckered pink stripes on his firm jawline. She wondered how he had come by them. From her earliest memory of him, Harris had borne these. Only recently had she come to realize they had marred his character as much as his appearance. A warm tear rose unbidden in her eye and fell onto his cheek. Harris gave a slight twitch but did not wake.

Sailing toward the setting sun, the St. Bride edged out of Canso’s tight passage into a wider waterway. Jenny suddenly realized she’d been too preoccupied to take a good look at her new homeland.

A low moan escaped Harris’s lips, but his eyes never flickered.

“We’re through to the Northumberland.” Captain Glendenning rubbed his hands together in a gesture of self-satisfaction. “Nova Scotia behind us, Prince Edward Island to the nor’east, and New Brunswick to the sou’west. With fair winds we’ll make harbor in Richibucto by first light tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine, Captain,” Jenny said tightly. This morning she would have been enthralled by news of their nearness to the Miramichi. At the moment she could think of nothing beyond Harris. He’d been hurt trying to keep her from harm, and he’d feel more pain before the captain was through doctoring him. The last thing she wanted to do was cause Harris pain.

“Can we get this over with?” she asked from between clenched teeth.

“May as well, while we’ve a bit of light,” the captain agreed. “Matie, hold his bad arm. Bosun, take the other, and Blair, his legs. Thomas, hold his head.”

“I’ll hold his head,” said Jenny in a tone that brooked no refusal.

“Have it yer way, lass.” The captain shrugged. “He may thrash around a bit when I apply the pitch.”

“I’m strong. I can hold him.”

The captain lifted the improvised bandage from Harris’s arm. With a thin slat of wood, he drew a generous gob of thick, black resin from the cook’s cauldron. Ominous tendrils of steam rose from it. Jenny couldn’t bring herself to watch. She turned her head and clamped her eyes tightly shut.

Harris returned to life with a mad bellow of pain. His head jerked up, catching Jenny in the chest and knocking the wind out of her.

“What the…?” A torrent of curses issued from his lips, the gist of which was—what had happened, where was he, and why had they seen fit to torture him?

Beneath the acrid stink of pitch, Jenny smelled Harris’s burning flesh. Her stomach seethed.

“Hush, now.” She bent close over him, touching her cheek to his as if hoping to leech some of his pain. “Ye were struck with a musket ball from the pirate guns. Ye fell and hit yer head. Ye’ve been out for ever so long, Harris. I worried for ye. The captain said he had to doctor yer wound with hot pitch to keep it from going bad.”

Her explanation must have satisfied him somewhat, for Harris quit cursing. He clenched his lips in a tight, rigid line. A sheen of sweat blossomed on his forehead. Then Jenny remembered the jug of rum.

“Have a drink of this,” she coaxed. “It’ll dull the pain.”

He swallowed the modest measure Jenny had dribbled into his mouth, gasping at the potency of the raw spirits. Before he could object, she poured more rum into him. Nodding over his work with approval, Captain Glendenning bound Harris’s arm with a fresh strip of canvas. Once Jenny had dispensed several more doses of rum, the captain signaled his crewmen to release their hold on the patient’s limbs. Harris struggled to his feet. With the hand of his sound arm, he snatched the rum jar from Jenny.

Tendering a clumsy bow that almost sent him sprawling back down on the deck, Harris addressed the captain. “Thank ye for the medical attention. If ye’ll all excuse me, I’ll retire to my cabin to recover from the day’s adventures.”

Jenny detected a twitch in the captain’s lips. A quick glance at the crewmen told her they were also hiding smiles. She could cheerfully have throttled the lot of them.

“I’ll help ye down the companionway, Harris.” She cast the men a furious look that dared them to make anything of it. That look had often quelled her brothers, and it worked equally well on the crew of the St. Bride. A few began to talk noisily among themselves, while others grew suddenly busy with any little chore that might remove them from Jenny’s sphere.

Whether still dizzy from the blow to his head, or already feeling the effects of the captain’s rum, Harris weaved and tottered dangerously as he moved away. Jenny overtook him easily, sliding his good arm around her shoulder for support.

“I’m feeling a mite faint from all the excitement, myself.” She spoke loudly, that the crew and other passengers might hear. “Since ye’re going below yerself, perhaps ye might see me to my cabin, Mr. Chisholm.”

“Oh, aye,” Harris muttered. The taut set of his mouth suggested he was keeping to his feet, however unsteadily, by will alone.

They managed to stagger to his cabin, where Harris promptly collapsed on his berth. Jenny began wrestling with the knot of his stock. He batted her hands away.

“What are ye trying to do, strangle me?”

“I’m trying to undress ye for bed, so ye’ll rest more comfortably,” Jenny snapped. In truth, her nerves were more than a little frayed by the events of this afternoon. She half wished she’d taken a swig from Captain Glendenning’s rum jar. “If ye’ll just cooperate, it’ll go easier for both of us.”

“Ye can undo my neck linen, I suppose, and haul off my boots. Leave the rest be, do ye hear?”

“Fine. Fine.” Jenny was prepared to humor him. The removal of his stock and boots would go some way toward making Harris more comfortable. She wasn’t anxious to manhandle him out of his shirt, while trying to spare his wounded arm. As for his trousers, she had no intention of meddling with those.

With some difficulty, she managed to pry off his boots. Setting them neatly by the foot of his berth, she drew the blankets up over him. Spotting a short, three-legged stool in the corner, she pulled it nearer the bed, wilting onto the seat with a deep sigh.

Harris opened his eyes a slit. “What are ye about, now?”

“What does it look like? I’m settling myself down to stay the night and tend ye if ye need anything.”

“What about yer fair reputation?” Harris’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “How will ye explain it to yer fiancé, Mr. Douglas, when he gets word that ye spent the night in my cabin?”

Casting that up to her after all these weeks, was he?

“I’ll tell him the truth, of course. That ye were sore hurt and I was taking care of ye.” Jenny could feel her cheeks smarting with an angry blush. “I’ll also tell him ye weren’t in any condition to make advances.”

“What about ye, Jenny Lennox?” Harris asked. “Is my virtue safe from yer advances?”

“I’ll make every effort to restrain myself.” Jenny tried to match his mocking tone.

Harris gave an arid, joyless laugh. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

What on earth did he mean by that? Jenny wondered.

His eyes fell shut again. “Go away, Jenny. Leave me in peace.”

If Harris Chisholm thought she was going anywhere, he had another think coming. “Isn’t that what it’s supposed to say on yer tombstone—Rest in Peace?”

“I haven’t any intention of dying on ye, lass. I may not look it, but I’m made of sterner stuff than that. I just want to be left alone.”

“Why?”

Harris struggled to sit up. “Why?” he echoed her question. “Because my arm hurts like hell, and my head hurts like hell, and I feel queer—like I don’t know what I might say or do next. I want to rest, without ye gawking at me and fretting every time I feel a twinge.”

Contrary, stubborn fool of a man! Jenny could feel herself shaking with the effort to contain her vexation. No one had ever made her feel with the intensity Harris Chisholm did. Whether it was rage or pity or…anything else, he always provoked such explosive emotions in her. She hated it.

“Ye’re too proud to give in to yer pain before a woman? Is that it? Well, go right ahead, for I don’t care. Moan. Groan. Bawl like a wee babby if ye want to. I swear I won’t think any the less of ye for it.”

“Because ye couldn’t think less of me than ye do already?”

Jenny hesitated a moment before replying. The words that came out surprised her. “No,” she said softly. “Because I think the world of ye, and nothing’ll ever change that. First ye made my dreams possible, by letting me come on the St. Bride.”

Though she knew she should speak of Roderick Douglas at this point, Jenny’s lips refused to form his name. “Then ye taught me how to read. Ye’ve no idea what a gift that’s been to me. I owe ye so much. Let me do this one wee thing by sitting with ye tonight.”

He collapsed back onto his pillow so abruptly, Jenny started toward him in alarm. “What is it, Harris? Are ye all right?”

She leaned over him, relieved to hear his breath coming rapid but even. Then, before she knew what was happening, Jenny found herself encircled by Harris’s sound arm, and being pulled down to him. She didn’t struggle, for it might reopen his wound. At least that was what she told herself. His lips blundered over her lower face until they found hers.

Her first true kiss from a man.

Jenny and Kirstie had discussed this vital subject often in recent years. On those rare occasions when she’d lingered awake for a moment before falling into an exhausted sleep, she’d imagined herself being kissed by Roderick Douglas. This was nothing like the gallant, tentative salute she’d dreamed of. Harris kissed her deeply, voraciously, the way a man dying of thirst would consume cool, fresh water.

His mouth tasted of rum. It felt hot. So hot, that when his lips touched hers, Jenny half expected to hear them sizzle. His kiss, his arm tight around her, and the oddly pleasurable feel of her bosom mashed against his chest, made her body tingle with strange, intoxicating sensations.

Then, as unexpectedly as it had begun, it ended. Harris wrenched his lips from hers and pushed Jenny back. She staggered away from his berth, breathless and disoriented. Fortunately, she managed to light on the stool. Her body throbbed with frustration and the stirring of a slumbering hunger.

All was quiet in the cabin, save for their ragged breathing.

At last Harris spoke, in a voice hardly above a whisper. Raw. Bitter. And dead weary. “That’s the only payment I want from ye, Jenny. I know ye’d never give it to me, so I’ve gone ahead and taken it. Yer debt’s square now. No need to hang around here any longer smothering me with yer pity.”

“Pity?” Jenny fairly shrieked. Anger was the only safe outlet for the combustible mix of emotions she barely understood. “Of all the things I feel for ye at this minute, Harris Chisholm—and I don’t recognize half of them myself—I can assure ye there is not a scrap of pity in the lot.”

“Oh?” He sounded surprised, and more than a little curious. “What all do ye feel for me, at this minute. The bits ye recognize, I mean.”

“Rage,” Jenny spat, “and in-dig-nation, for a start.”

“That’s all?” he asked, his tone bleak and hollow.

No. There was more, much more, and Jenny longed to tell him so. After that kiss, she did not dare. No matter what her intense, confused feelings for Harris Chisholm, it made no difference. She meant to marry Roderick Douglas and nothing was going to stand in her way. It would be cruel to encourage Harris to think otherwise.

“I’m grateful to ye, of course.” Safe enough to admit that much. She’d be a hard-hearted little wretch to feel less. And maybe that’s what it was, after all. A profound sense of gratitude and the habit of spending day after day in close company. Jenny could almost make herself believe it.

“Gratitude.” Harris sighed. “That’s almost as dry a crust as pity.” His voice grew hard. “Stay then, if ye won’t go, Jenny Lennox. But mind ye leave me be or I won’t be responsible for my actions. If ye come near this bed again, like as not I’ll kiss ye again. And I might not stop there.”

Stubbornly Jenny held her place. He only meant to frighten her away with his talk, she was certain. Still, the notion of him kissing her again, and following it with even more intimate liberties, made her cheeks smart.

Her heart raced in time to the brisk bounce of the ship. Evidently that sou’wester the captain smelled on the morning breeze had blown up.

Time passed. Jenny did not know how much.

Wind screeched through a hundred tiny chinks in the upper hull. The timbers creaked in chorus, as though each sought to part violently from the others. On the deck above Jenny’s head, footsteps fell in a heavy, lurching rhythm. It took her back to that first night on the St. Bride, when she’d cowered in her berth, certain she’d never survive the night’s storm.

Perhaps she wouldn’t have without Harris. She recalled the gentle dispatch of his touch. The soothing timbre of his voice so close to her ear. The comforting fact of his presence.

“I’m sorry, Harris,” she murmured to herself. “I never meant to lead ye on, I swear it. I’d not hurt ye for the world.”

“Don’t fret yerself, lass.”

She nearly jumped a foot when his words of reassurance pierced the din of the storm. She’d assumed he was asleep.

“I’ve a heart of shoe leather,” he continued. “Like as not, I only fooled myself about how I feel. Ye’re the first lass who’s been more than civil to me. What with all the love talk in Mr. Scott’s books and ye being such a bonny wee thing…”

“Aye, that’s likely all it is,” Jenny hastened to agree. “The next lass who passes the time of day with ye will make ye forget all about me.”

Somehow, that thought did not sit well with her, though she could not puzzle why.

Just as Jenny had decided to put the whole matter from her mind, the rapidly moving ship came to an abrupt, shuddering halt.

She plowed across the narrow cabin and onto the berth with Harris. He gave a sharp hiss of pain as she landed on top of him. The lamp went crashing to the floor, where it sputtered for a moment before going out.

“Damn!” cried Harris. “We’ve run aground.” Pushing Jenny off him, he groped for the floor. “Where’ve ye put my boots?”

With a muffled report of rending wood, the barque lurched forward again.

Reaching down into the darkness, Jenny retrieved one of Harris’s boots.

“I have the other.” She heard him call as though from a great distance.

She sensed his contortions, trying to pull on the tight boots with an injured arm.

“We’ve got to get on deck,” said Harris.

Before they could scramble out of the berth, the St. Bride once again fetched up against something solid. This time Harris fell on Jenny. As the breath burst from her lungs, she felt the soft scratch of his unshaven cheek against her forehead. One of his knees pinned her legs apart. When she raised her hand, it brushed the warm flesh of his chest through his open shirtfront. Some lunatic impulse within her wished they had hours to roll around on this narrow berth.

As the barque strained between the force of the storm wind in her sails and the pressure of the sandbar on her hull, Harris clambered up and hoisted Jenny to her feet. She gasped to feel water soaking into her shoes. There must be a good three inches of it already seeped through the floorboards, and rising fast.

“This way.” Harris grasped her right hand and latched it to the waistband of his trousers. “Don’t let go, ye hear? No matter what happens.”

They staggered toward the cabin door. Jenny hoped that was where they were headed, at any rate. It was impossible to make out anything in the dense darkness of the barque’s hold. Jenny fought to master her mounting panic at the thought of being trapped below decks. At least she had Harris with her this time.

She would trust him with her life.

As Harris pulled the cabin door open, someone fell through from the companionway.

“Have a care what ye’re doing!” cried a voice. Jenny recognized the gruff, bass rumble of Mr. Tweedie, the cobbler from Wigtown. With a splash, the man regained his feet and fought his way out into the passage once more.

Harris followed, towing Jenny along behind him.

The tight companionway boiled with frantic shouts and grunts and the press of bodies anxious to escape the seawater flooding the lower decks. Jenny clutched Harris for all she was worth as he plunged ahead. They stumbled up the steep stairs, bursting onto the deck at last.

After the suffocating squeeze of the companionway, Jenny gulped in deep drafts of the briny wind, grateful to be out in the open at last.

“We must get to a lifeboat!” Harris bellowed.

His words barely penetrated the howl of the wind and the frantic babble of voices around them.

After a few faltering steps, Jenny felt the solid bulk of the ship’s railing. Clinging to Harris with her right hand, she closed around the railing with her left and followed him.

“It’s just up ahead!” Harris called back to her as a great billow hit the barque and doused them both with seawater.

Coughing and sputtering to catch her breath, Jenny lost her hold on the railing.

Another breaker followed, driving the St. Bride against another treacherous sandbar. Jenny’s feet slid on the slick boards of the deck. She felt herself tumble against the rail and over into a black void.

At the last instant, she loosed her hold on Harris. She owed him better than a watery grave with her.

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