It was a fine, soft day. The sort of day that made a man feel glad he was alive, and spring had finally returned. A warm breeze blew through Derek’s long hair, ruffling it, and he smiled at even that small pleasure. One he had missed.

The breeze blowing through his hair, as it always had when he stood on the deck of one of his ships.

He looked out over the landscape, marveling at its beauty. He’d missed it so, without being aware of missing it. Ben Nevis, the Grampians with their towering peaks. Lush greenery, so different from the endless stretches of the sea he’d grown accustomed to.

Both sights were equally majestic in his eyes, but after a winter such as the one he’d lived through, his current surroundings were just slightly more welcome to his snow-weary eyes.

Endless winter months spent indoors huddled around a fire for warmth and constantly in the presence of those also held hostage by snowdrifts and biting winds tended to bring a man’s sanity near its end. At least, if that man happened to be Derek McInnis.

But it was spring, finally and for all, the warm air a blessing he swore to himself he’d never take for granted again. How could it be that he’d forgotten so easily the severity of a Highland winter?

He’d told himself he remembered, could recall the dangerous cold and would never forget the poor souls lost to it, foolhardy young people for the most part. The sort who’d thought they would live forever. Unfortunately for them, that simply wasn’t the case. No man or woman who ventured out without a solid plan and a knowledge of how to read the ever-shifting weather could hope to make it back alive.

He’d learned his lessons well in those days.

Even so, with all of his history behind him and the memories still fresh and clear, he’d been taken aback by the utter brutality of the winter he and the rest of those taking shelter in the Duncan manor house had endured.

It had come early, a mere six weeks after he’d arrived with his brother Hugh, and Broc, and the young lass Hugh’d rescued from drowning back in Kincarny. By then, Derke had already started to itch in the way a man accustomed to being on the go itched when he’d been in the same place for too long.

His mind had begun to dance with visions of everything he could be doing—nay, should be doing as the owner of a thriving shipping business. Not the largest in all of Scotland, but thriving nonetheless.

Then again, as he had soberly reminded himself time and again, he had no knowledge of how his warehouse had fared. He was unaware of the location of his ships. There was no telling whether he even owned a business any longer.

Every time the image of that burning warehouse rose to the front of his mind like the bloated, gas-filled carcass of a dead sea creature, he’d nearly burst with the need to get to the coast and find out everything he could.

That was before the first snowflakes had fallen in earnest, when there had still been a chance of making it down to Kirkcaldy without being caught in a storm. It had been his last chance, too, since the snow hadn’t let up for more than a week’s time over the course of the five months following.

When it wasn’t snowing, the wind had roared, pushing the fresh powder against the walls of the manor, creating drifts which had all but reached the roof at times. It had been a never-ending battle against the elements, against snow which had seemed determined to make its way through every last chink and cranny in the stone walls. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d noticed the household staff, accompanied by anyone who cared to assist them, dipping rags into melted tallow and shoving the bits of cloth into any previously unnoticed crack. The tallow served to seal the cloth, preventing the snow from soaking it and rendering it useless against the ever-encroaching and insidious elements.

But it had ended, as all seasons do, and the ground was soft as a result of the melting which had only ended a few days prior to Derek setting out.

The gelding which Phillip had lent him was expert at picking his way over the muddiest sections, careful not to get himself and his rider helplessly stuck.

Derek was glad for this, but it didn’t help that he wanted to get to Kirkcaldy immediately. He simply had to know the outcome of the fire which Dalla’s uncle had set before coming to his grisly end on the shoals.

The sound of Broc’s gentle snorts were not a welcome one, since Derek knew they were the result of his first mate’s attempt at disguising his mirth.

“What are you snickering at, if you don’t mind my asking?” he asked, casting a sour look over one shoulder at the hulking man riding astride his own borrowed horse.

“At you, of course,” Broc answered in his deep rumble of a voice.

“And why, might I ask?”

“I know how eager you are to get back to it. You hate the way the horses are taking their time. Your fingers are so tight on the reins, you may just snap the leather.”

Derek turned his gaze forward again with a scowl, unwilling to allow every one of his emotions to be read so plainly, but loosening his grip just the same. A man didn’t take well to the knowledge that his mind was so open for examination.

But the kinship he had with Broc was different from any he’d known. Over the course of his life, only he and Hugh had ever been closer. It was a good thing, a necessary thing, that they be able to read the other’s thoughts and actions. That unspoken closeness had saved their necks on more than one occasion, while the seas churned and tossed their ship and its cargo.

It took time for a captain to shout instructions to his crew when every last moment counted. Broc had never needed much instruction and, in fact, had a knack for instructing the crew just as Derek would. It had been a natural progression for Derek to name him first mate—had the business kept growing in its fashion, he would’ve made him a partner, perhaps in one or two years.

Was all of that merely a memory now? His chest tightened at the thought of having lost so much of what was so dear to him. The only thing which had ever really, truly been his.

He willed those thoughts out of his mind, as though that would work. He turned his attention to the countryside instead, breathing deep of the scent of pine as another breeze carried it to him. It was an intoxicating scent, clean and fresh. Unlike the salt sea air to which he’d become accustomed.

They were just broaching the southern boundary of Duncan land, and he’d been warned time and again of the danger from warring clans. His route wouldn’t take him through their lands, which sat to the north and west of the Duncan stronghold. A good thing, too, as he had no desire to run into the Orkneys or McGregors. He’d heard enough about them over the course of the winter to last the rest of his life.

The muddy, uneven terrain would likely be enough to keep them to their lands, at any rate. He hoped so. He was having enough difficulty with his gelding, though he was far less accustomed to traveling on horseback than they were.

Heather would carpet the ground soon enough, and the birch and oak trees would don their leaves. He could see it all so clearly in his memories of his childhood, when he and his twin brother had very nearly lived outdoors from sun-up to sunset.

Nothing could hold them back in those days, especially with such a brute of a father at home. Who would want to expose themselves to more violence if they could possibly avoid it?

Those memories were nearly enough to keep Derek’s dark thoughts at bay—for the time being, at least. Almost enough for him to forget his eagerness to find everything he could about the fate of his ships and warehouse.

That eagerness had gnawed at him throughout the long, cold, dark months. No matter how bright the fire or how warm the conversation—and he did certainly get along well with everyone who called the manor house their home—something had been missing.

His brother Hugh had known. Hugh’s eyes had watched him with growing curiosity over the weeks leading up to the spring thaw. Once the wind had shifted, bringing with it the first blessed taste of what was to come, he’d pulled Derek aside.

“I suppose you’ll be going now?” he’d asked, though it wasn’t a question.

“Aye. I must. Though it won’t be to stay, mind. I’m only interested in finding out what’s happened to the warehouse, and the location of my ships.”

“You’ll return to where we made landfall, then?” Hugh’s expression had been anything but confident.

“And why not?”

“For one, it’s far too dangerous a trek to be made over soaked earth,” he’d reasoned. “For another, the harbor itself was practically empty when we arrived. Or have you forgotten? What are the chances that anyone with knowledge of your business would have recently traveled through?”

His brother had a good point, which Derek had been loath to admit. It was never easy for him to step aside in the face of another’s stronger reasoning.

“What do you suggest I do, then?”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Hugh had replied.

“I’m certain you have.”

“And I believe you should travel south, instead. To the coast, to Kirkcaldy. It’s much larger, better established, and there’s a better chance you’ll hear word of your business interests there.”

It was a good point, and Derek hadn’t had a choice but to take his brother’s advice. It had been so long since he’d called the Highlands home, since he’d been aware of the doings so close to where he’d become a man. Once business had begun to grow, his attention had focused mostly on the coasts of England and France, where the bulk of his profitable trade took place.

When he’d left home, years earlier, the village hadn’t been much more than a wayside stop-off for sailors looking to replenish their supplies and perhaps indulge in a few of the pleasures ill-afforded a healthy, hot-blooded man out to sea for months at a time. Derek had never begrudged a crew their pleasures and had, in fact, worked such diversions into his schedules.

Much better for a man to have something to look forward to than to take his frustrations out on others. Derek knew there were sailors who kidnapped young lasses and forced them into servitude aboard ship. He’d seen it with his own eyes.

Even thinking about it sent a shudder of disgust through him. It had been years since he’d first taken to sea, first learning what it meant to live life on a ship. He’d been so eager in those days, so determined to learn everything he could in order to be the best there ever was. He’d wanted to know what made a good sailor and a poor one, what constituted a fair price for services rendered and the many ways merchants tried to swindle the men who risked their lives to transport the goods by which they made their fortune.

It was then that he’d gotten his first look at what men were really capable of.

Certainly, life in the Highlands had been no fairy story to tell children whilst tucking them into bed at night. He’d seen more blood and viciousness than most lowlanders, he would’ve reckoned, at the time well-accustomed to seemingly meaningless brutality before he’d begun to grow hair on his face. And yet nothing could have prepared him for what he’d seen chained below deck, living among the rats.

She used to be a beautiful girl. He was sure of it. Her hair, had it been clean, would’ve shone like the late afternoon sun, all amber and warmth. Her too-wide, too-sunken eyes had been a charming shade of green, though the deep circles beneath them tended to distract from their beauty—that and the fact that she rarely opened them, having long since lost the strength. Or perhaps it was the only way she could protect herself. She didn’t want to see what was around her.

She’d been dressed in rags, or even less than rags, her body so painfully thin she was little more than skin and bones. Sores had developed on her wrists and ankles after so many days spent shackled to a post and oozed a mixture of blood and pus. She’d reeked of filth and waste. And the dried sweat of the men who had so brutally used her.

They’d sent him down to have his turn. That was the unholy hilarity of it all. They had expected him to take a look at the sickly wretch and be stirred to passion. Selfish bastards.

She had never spoken a word to him, only opening her eyes when he’d spent many minutes speaking softly to her. It was a mystery whether she’d even understood English, but she must have understood the gentleness of his tone and the way he’d not laid a finger on her.

They’d thrown her overboard the next day, having grown tired of her.

Looking back, it was a blessing. Not a month had passed in all the years since that fateful voyage that he hadn’t thought of the poor lass and offered a clumsy prayer for her, never having been a praying man but feeling as though she deserved that much. He’d sometimes wondered about her family, about whether they’d long since stopped wondering what had happened to their lovely girl.

“Are you listening to me?” Broc demanded.

Derek was dimly aware of him pulling his horse up short.

“What?” He threw a glance over his shoulder.

“I suggested we make camp for the night.”

They’d been riding for hours, mostly in silence as it took skill and focus to ride in such conditions. Conditions which Phillip, Jake, their wives and most of the others had considered too dangerous.

“Wait another week—even a fortnight,” Sarah had urged, his mother’s namesake at her breast. It had long since ceased embarrassing him, the sight of her bustling around the manor house while nursing her child. She was a busy woman, after all, wife of the laird and a skilled healer to boot. It wouldn’t do to keep herself locked away simply because she had borne a child.

Phillip had had plenty to say about that, and their rows had woken the entire house on more than one occasion. But Sarah had won out, as she normally did when it came to things she truly cared about.

Even so, out of respect to the laird and his good wife, the men of the house had made a habit of avoiding her when she nursed.

There had no avoiding her just then, when she’d all but blocked the doorway leading from his chambers to the corridor just beyond.

“There’s no need,” he’d assured her, trying to avert his eyes without appearing too obvious, though a blanket covered her modestly. “I grew up here, I know the terrain like the back of my hand. I know how soft and yielding the ground will be, how thick and deep the mud. How vulnerable the young trees and their roots, with the ground so loose around them.”

“How hungry the animals will be, having woken from their slumber,” she’d reminded him.

“Aye, that as well,” he’d acknowledged. “And how easy it will be to track and fell them whenever I have a mind to enjoy a piece of venison or boar. Or bear.”

“Don’t mention bears, please,” she’d chuckled, though it had been a humorless sound. “Nor boars, nor anything else which might find you.”

“I’ll be all right. If I can survive weeks at sea, I can survive anything. You just take care of wee Mary there, and your sister. Not to mention her husband,” he’d laughed.

Poor Jake had been beside himself once Heather’s pregnancy had progressed to the point where she waddled more than she walked.

“Do you think you’ll be back in time for the happy event?” she’d asked as they walked side-by-side to the stairs which led to the first floor.

“I don’t see why not. You say she has another month?”

“Most likely.”

“I cannot imagine it taking that long for me to find what I need and return,” he’d surmised.

She had merely laughed, shaking her head. “You might be surprised. Seldom do excursions made by members of the Duncan clan turn out as expected.”

With this in mind, Derek looked around, taking in their surroundings with a practiced eye.

The light was turning a shade of orange so particular to that time of year when the sun began its descent, casting the southernmost edges of the Grampian range and their snow-capped peaks in a haze of gold. It was nearly heartbreakingly beautiful—the sort of vision he wished his mother were still alive to see. She would’ve appreciated it.

However, while beautiful, the setting sun brought with it the need to find or create shelter for the night. A fire would be welcome, the air turning decidedly chill so late in the day. It would only grow colder with each passing minute.

They could heat the roasted rabbits which the cook from the manor house had provided them and create makeshift shelter using the blankets which Sarah had insisted they pack, along with a small bag of poultices, tinctures, and herbs from her collection. Just in case.

Broc was waiting for his command, still the first mate. Still ready to defer to his captain.

“Aye,” he decided with a firm nod, allowing reason to overcome his sense of urgency. “Let us set up for the night.”