The Winter Sea

She did not look at Moray, and he did not speak, but in the silent air between them she could sense his question.

‘He did never touch me as he touched her. She had made him promise not to, in exchange for her compliance, and for all he was a villain he did keep his word.’ The next part was more difficult. ‘But Anna was with child when she died. My uncle’s child. He would not have the neighbors know it, and so he did call upon the knowledge of a woman who did claim that she could stop the bairn from growing.’ There was sunlight on the crest of the horizon, but Sophia’s eyes, while fixed upon it, only saw the darkness of that awful night—the dirty, grinning woman with her evil-smelling potions. Anna’s terror as their uncle held her down. Her screams. The stench of death. Sophia finished quietly, ‘If I did still believe in God, I would have said He took my sister to Himself from pity.’

Moray, looking at her steadily, said nothing, and she took the little pebble in her hand and clutched it tightly, till she felt its hard impression. ‘’Tis an ugly tale,’ she said, ‘and likely I should not have told you.’

‘Ye surely did not stay,’ he asked her, ‘in that house?’

‘I had no choice. But Uncle John fell ill himself soon after, and so lost his power to harm me.’

Moray did not touch her, but she felt as though he had. ‘Ye have my word,’ he said with quiet force, ‘that no man ever will again do harm to ye, while I do live.’ His eyes were hard, and dark with what she took for anger, but it was not meant for her. ‘And ye can tell that to the gardener up at Slains, for if he—’

‘Please,’ she interrupted him, alarmed. ‘Please, you must promise you’ll not fight with Billy Wick.’

His eyes grew harder still. ‘Ye would protect him?’

‘No, but neither would I have you make an enemy of such a man on my account, for he would seek his vengeance, then, and you have much to lose.’

The pebble in her hand was hurting now. She loosed her grip, and braved a glance at Moray. He was watching her, his grey eyes still a shade too dark, but not, she thought, with anger. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. ‘Are ye worried for my safety?’

She had no voice to answer him. She nodded, once, but faintly.

‘Lass.’ And then she saw the memory strike him, and he asked her slowly, as though he yet disbelieved it, ‘Was it me that ye were praying for, that morning in the stables?’

She tried to look away, but he reached out to hold her face within his hand and turn it back again. He asked her, low, as though it mattered, ‘Was it me?’

He was too close, she thought. His eyes were too intense upon her own, and held her trapped so that she could not look away, or move, or breathe in proper rhythm. And she could think of no defense to offer but, ‘I do not pray,’ she told him, though her voice was none too steady and without conviction. ‘I do not believe in God.’

He smiled, in that quick and blinding flash that left her speechless. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘so ye did tell me.’ And he took her face in both his hands and brought it to his own, and kissed her.

It was no hardened soldier’s kiss. His mouth came down on hers with care, with something close to reverence, mindful of the fact that she had never been so touched before, and it was like a wave had rolled upon her in the sea and sent her tumbling underwater. For that swirling moment, all she felt was him—his warmth, his touch, his strength, and when he raised his head she rocked towards him, helplessly off balance.

He looked down at her as though he’d felt the power of that contact, too.

Sophia felt a sudden need to speak, although she knew not what to tell him. ‘Mr Moray—’

But his dark eyes stopped her. ‘I’ve a name, lass,’ he replied, ‘and I would hear ye say it.’

‘John—’

But even as she spoke the word, she knew that it was ill-advised, for once again he stopped her with a kiss that shook her senses still more deeply than the first, and she found herself with no more will to speak for quite some time.

CHAPTER 13

MY FATHER, ON THE phone, had no idea. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I thought he read it, somewhere. Wasn’t there a piece in one of Greg Clark’s books about a little stone that had a hole in it?’

‘“The Talisman,”’ I named the story by one of my favorite Canadian writers. ‘Yes, but Grandpa didn’t get it from there. Don’t you remember, he always used to say he liked that story because his own father had told him the same thing— that if you found a little stone that had a hole in it, it would protect you, keep you safe from harm.’

‘Well, there you go. My father never talked to me the way he talked to you girls, but if he said that his father told him, that’s your answer, isn’t it?’

‘But how far back,’ I asked him, ‘does the thing about the stone go, in our family? Who first started it?’

‘I couldn’t tell you, honey. Does it matter?’

Looking down, I smoothed my thumb across the little worn pebble in my hand. I’d found it just last year in Spain, though I’d been looking for one ever since my grandfather had told me of it when I was a child. He’d never found one of his own. I’d often seen him strolling, head bent, at the water’s edge, and I had known what he was searching for. He’d told me if I found one, I should wear it round my neck. I hadn’t done that, yet. I’d been afraid the cord I’d threaded through the hole would break, and so I’d kept the stone safe in the little case I used to carry jewelry when I traveled, and had trusted it to do its job from there.