It'd been that way as children, too. Though he'd been enthralled then. Now he just found this… absorption…

galling. He slammed his fist against the doorway and then, scowling, shook it out. He'd not punched anything in some time. How was it he found himself two for two by noontime?

He'd simply go to her rooms. He nodded and headed to the stairs. Surely he'd find her there. It was improper, but the woman had gotten under his skin. He felt the clumsy brute, and the urge to make his peace with her had grown maddening.

He knocked. Silence.

Banging harder, he cursed under his breath. If she wasn't in her room, it meant she'd left the house altogether.

He frowned, instandy angry that yet again she'd risk her safety and leave the house unchaperoned. Assuring himself it was for her own good, he decided he'd simply go out, find her, and retrieve her.

And then Cormac frowned some more, scolding himself that she was an adult who likely spent much time on her own.

Marjorie was a grown woman, for some reason still unwed, living very nearly independently.

The thought gave him pause.

He found he was suddenly curious for a glimpse of her world.

He told himself he needed some idea as to her whereabouts. All he really needed to do was ask one of the household staff where she might have gotten off to, but still, he told himself it was her bedroom that held the best clue.

He turned the knob, and the door opened to reveal a modest, airy room, with walls painted a cheery butter-yellow. Though it was a simple space with only a bed, side table, and small desk, it didn't feel austere. Small personal touches were scattered about the room: a handful of books, knots of dried flowers, a smattering of seashells.

Cormac stepped inside, fascinated. He sat on her bed and knew a moment's guilty thrill, which he dismissed at once. He was a man grown now, no longer a smitten ten-year-old. There was a task at hand, and he would concentrate on it. He would be logical, impervious, like the scout he'd been trained to be.

A strange starburst pattern on her bedside table drew his eye. It was a collection of shells, arranged so

deliberately. He realized it was of more import to her than he'd originally thought.

He picked up a shell. He'd had no idea she was so fascinated by the seashore. The notion sent a peculiar thrill through his belly. He thought on his own affinity for the sea, of his love for the gray, blustering, lonely promise of it.

He carefully fingered each one. There were limpets the color of sand. A top shell with a flawlessly smooth mother-of-pearl lining. Black periwinkles. The long, twirling white shells they'd called twisties as children.

And in the center, a perfect mermaid's purse. He picked it up, rocked by the rush of memories. Smooth and black, it was nearly the size of his palm. He traced his finger along the straight edges to the curls at its top. Until that moment, he'd forgotten that they'd always been her favorite. Though merely the seed sac of some creature, it'd been the stuff of magic to young Ree. She'd swear selkie brides carried them with their grandest finery. Cormac remembered now how he'd comb the beach, proud when he found one perfectly intact to give her.

He carefully set it back in its place. Astonished, he wondered what it all meant. What the strange tug in his chest meant.

The door swung open, and a woman's gasp tore him from his reverie. Guilt twisted his stomach, and he quickly submerged his errant feelings in the familiar cold, hard exterior he wore as comfortably as his plaid.

“What are you doing?” the woman exclaimed. “Who are you?”

“Me?” He rose from the bed to glare down at her. “Who are you?”

Chapter 12

“I'm Marjorie's maid,” the woman said. “Fiona.”

Though she didn't strike him as nervous, her cheeks flushed immediately and thoroughly. Cormac placed her at once.

He shook his head in wonder. “Fiona.” A girl named Fiona had come into the Keith family household when Marjorie was eight. Not long before, he thought, his every milestone in time falling either before Aidan s capture or after.

Cormac hadn't been much interested in the girl at the time, though he had noticed her peculiar habit of blushing at the slightest provocation. “The same Fiona?”

She shrugged, wandering in to straighten the bed, blushing anew. “Same as what?”

“Aye, you'd be the same Fiona, then.” He shook his head. Lasses and their ways. It aggravated him. “Be easy, woman. I'm Cormac MacAlpin.”

“Oh aye, Cormac. Aye. Of course.” A strange look crossed her face, and he could've sworn she muttered, “Finally decides to appear, he does.”

Cormac stared. “What?”

The girl stared back, then, like water come to a boil, she exploded into chatter. “Marjorie said she'd find you.

That she'd bring you back. She knew where you lived, you see. Your sister tells her everything. Bridget, I mean.

Oh, and that dear Archie” — she sighed, pressing a hand to her breast — “he wants to help.”

“Archie.” Cormac didn't realize until he heard his own voice that he'd growled the name. Did this Archie captivate every female he came into contact with?

“But Marjorie'd have naught to do with his plan,” the maid prattled on.

Cormac tried to keep up, parsing her nonsense, wondering what cursed plan she could be referring to. She was nodding meaningfully, and he found it inexplicably irritating.

“Oh, but I told her she should,” Fiona said with a scold in her voice. “Archie knows all manner of noblemen.

But, she wanted you. You know she thinks… that you are… well… never you mind that.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “But you were sitting on her bed!”

Her words echoed in his head. She wanted you.

“I need to know where she is.”

“Well it wouldn't be her day for Saint Machar,” Fiona mused. “Likely she just went to her place.”

“Her place?” he prodded impatiently.

“Why, the shore, and where else? Aberdeen Beach. She fancies the waves. Says they're bigger there.” Relaxed now, the maid bustled around the room, straightening the bedclothes where he'd been sitting.

“Is that where she got all these seashells?”

“Oh, aye. She finds them along the sand. It's fair soft there. Our Marjorie likes to take off her shoes and walk by the waves.”

Our Marjorie. What did she see, standing in the surf and looking to the horizon? Did she feel the same pull, find the same lonely solace as he?

My Marjorie.

“The whole thing strikes me as a fool silly thing to do. Her hem when she gets home — it's a mess!” He could imagine it in his mind's eye. Marjorie walking along the shore, the wind whipping her hair, her cheeks flushed from the brisk air. She wouldn't be a mess. She'd be beautiful.

He had to go to her. He had to see her for himself.

“Well, I never… “ Fiona sputtered, as Cormac stormed past.

He fled from the house and didn't even think to fetch his horse from the mews. Instead, his feet devoured Aberdeen's winding streets in long strides. Navigating mucky wooden cobbles, over Hangman's Brae, past Gallowgate, heading eastward.

To her.

Gray granite buildings, gray sky, gray sea-gloom surrounded him. And so he barely noticed the rain at first, when it came. Cold, thin drops pricked his face.

Marjorie was out there, somewhere, feeling this same rain. Did she lift her cowl against it, or turn her face in welcome?

His feet moved faster, until he found himself running. That gray sea loomed larger, closer. An eerie light hit it, the sun breaking through clouds, even as it rained. It cast the sea in a strange, luminous blue. He ran faster.

Aberdeen Beach swept before him, the stretch of it much wider than his own sliver of rocky Dunnottar shore. The waves were higher here, the sand soft underfoot. Something visceral shot from his feet to his core: a recognition, a homecoming.

A lone figure walked along the sand. A woman, with a dark cloak whipping about her legs. Her hair tangled long and loose behind her. She held it tucked behind one ear.

Ree.

Marjorie dug in her toes. She wished the waves could smooth the thoughts from her mind as predictably as they washed her footprints from the sand.

Cormac's words had rocked her. She'd thought nothing could be worse than weathering his blame, enduring his cruel silence, until he'd put voice to his cruel thoughts.

Unseemly. Reckless. Dangerous.

That last had been the worst of all. She'd been a danger to Aidan. A danger to Davie. Cormac thought her foolhardy, that her recklessness made her a danger still.

She'd only wanted to make him jealous. It had worked before, at Dunnottar. Or so she'd thought. But she'd clearly miscalculated.

It seemed Cormac had only accompanied her to Aberdeen because of his sense of duty. She'd been a fool to hope otherwise. Of course he'd offered his help. He was a man bound by honor. The years had hardened him, his time in the wars hammering all but that sense of duty from him. What she'd hoped might be tender feelings for her had merely been a sense of obligation.

Marjorie felt something, a shift in the air around her. It made her turn.

Cormac strode to her. Intent darkened his face. He was power and conviction and anguish, too.

He came to her in anger. He came to berate her and belittle her. Pride sputtered up from someplace down deep.

Marjorie stiffened her back, bracing for his attack. “If you've come to—” Cormac slammed into her, crushing her body close to his, and his mouth stole the words from her lips.

Wrapping an arm at her back, tangling a hand in her hair, Cormac kissed her, roughly, deeply, his mouth hard and hungry. She let her head fall back, feeling her heels leave the sand as he pulled her up and into him. She'd been gripping the sides of her cloak tightly, but her hands slackened. She let go, her arms stretched down and out at her sides, as though poised to feel a storm's wind rush over her body.

She'd felt ripples of desire tease through her before, but it'd been nothing compared to this. Need flooded her, crackling up and between her legs, lighting her belly on fire. Marjorie brought her hands to him, desperately clutching at Cormac's arms, his shoulders, his face. Whatever could get her closer to him.