Epilogue
Caya entered the kitchen just as dawn streaked through the crack in the shutters. She flipped the latch and swung them open, bathing the room in a pale light. She shrieked when a tartan heap the size of a sleeping cow shifted and rolled over on the floor to her left.
“Magnus, you scared the life out of me,” she rasped, clutching a hand to her heaving chest.
A thunder of footsteps from above signaled her cry had roused her slumbering husband.
“Caya!”
“It’s all right. It’s only Magnus,” she called and turned back to Declan’s massive cousin. “What are you doing sleeping on my kitchen floor?”
Declan burst into the room with dirk in hand and not a stitch of clothing. “What’s amiss?” He gave the impression of a lunatic, with eyes wild and snarled hair sticking out every which-way.
“It’s just Magnus.” She tossed Declan a kitchen towel and he clutched it to his privates.
“Why’s he here?”
“I’m sure he’ll tell us over breakfast, but you need to get dressed first.”
Deeming the threat neutralized, Declan nodded, turned, and casually strolled away. She took a moment to admire his slim backside. His smooth white bum looked so vulnerable when he was naked.
A few mild oaths rumbled behind her—Magnus using the center workbench to pull himself to his feet. To watch him, one might think Atlas had the easier of the two tasks. But what really gave her pause was when he pushed his own sleep-tousled hair from his face.
“You…you shaved,” she stammered, and recalled the set-to he’d had with Dr. Farquhar after the battle on board The Tigress. The doctor had insisted he needed to shave Magnus in order to stitch his wound, and Magnus had insisted the doctor soak his head in turpentine. Dr. Farquhar had obviously won. That was only a few days ago. “I’ve never seen you without your beard. You look so different.”
The big-but-no-longer-burly man closed his eyes and deflated. “Oh God. Not you, too.”
“I’m sorry. It just takes some getting used to, is all.” She shook off the initial shock of the dramatic change in a man she thought she knew well. “The cut on your face is handsome—I, uh—I mean—” She took a breath. “The cut is healing nicely.”
Magnus scowled at her. “Thanks.” His gaze flicked to something above her head.
She swung around to find her husband, now dressed in trousers and a rumpled shirt from yesterday. She hadn’t heard him approach in his stockinged feet.
Like her, Declan was taken aback by the change in Magnus. “What happened to you?” he asked.
Caya dragged over the milking stool and the upturned wooden box they’d been using in lieu of furniture until their new chairs arrived. “Sit. I’ll have tea ready in no time.” She hung the kettle over the flame, poked up the fire, and set the cast-iron girdle in the embers to heat. By the time she finished grinding the beans, the two cousins had settled in.
“I heard you wouldnae leave your cot until your whiskers returned.” There was a teasing tone in Declan’s voice, a dangerous thing to poke fun at Magnus in his irritable condition.
Magnus shifted, and the stool groaned under his weight.
“I came to congratulate you. I hear you two handfasted three days ago.” Magnus smiled up at her. “You see? Did I not tell you his dreams always come true?”
“That doesnae explain why you slept on my kitchen floor last night,” Declan said, his voice flat and demanding.
Magnus launched himself off the stool on a growl and paced the room, his size making the kitchen look tiny by comparison. Caya judged his agitated state may have been triggered by something embarrassing, something he was reluctant to share. Since Magnus didn’t look like he was ready to talk anytime soon, she handed Declan the egg basket.
“Would you go, dear?”
“Me?”
“Yes, please.” She poured boiling water over the tea leaves in the pot.
“But I cannae find my boots.”
“They’re right outside the door where you left them.”
He grumbled something in Gaelic and dragged himself outside.
As soon as he’d gone, she set the kettle down and gave Magnus a stern look. “If you won’t talk to Declan, talk to me. What’s going on?”
He stopped pacing and folded his tree-trunk arms across his chest. “They willnae leave me be.”
“Who won’t leave you be?”
He pointed in the general direction of Balforss and leaned forward. “Those women,” he said, as though speaking of monsters.
“The women you rescued from the pirate ship?”
“Aye.” He folded his arms again and thrust out a belligerent chin.
“Do you mean Miss Mary and Lady Charlotte are bothering you?”
“Aye,” he said with more force.
“What are they doing to vex you?”
“They keep bringing me food.” He might have said they kept bringing him snakes, he was that appalled.
“Really?”
“Aye, they do.”
Odd. She’d never known Magnus to complain about too much food.
He further reported his torture included idle chat, as well. “They stand at my door and ask, ‘Are ye well, Mr. Sinclair?’ and, ‘You were so brave to save us, Mr. Sinclair,’ and, ‘How can we ever thank you, Mr. Sinclair?’ Three times a day for the last three days. I couldnae take it any longer. So, I came here to find some peace.”
“Miss Virginia brought you food, too?” She didn’t doubt Mary and Charlotte would chase after Magnus, but Virginia?
He shifted his weight to the other foot and spoke to the floor in a volume she could barely register. “She’s the only one who hasnae dogged me.” As embarrassment spread across his face, Caya glimpsed a moment of unguarded affection for the willowy English woman.
“I see.” She poured them tea and pointed to his stool. He sat without protest, waiting while she retrieved the cream and joined him. “Do you want Miss Virginia to dog you?” she asked and put a dollop of cream in his cup.
“She would never. She’s too dignified.”
He was right about that. Of all the rescued women, Virginia was the most levelheaded, the one who held the respect of the others.
“Have you spoken to her?”
“Once. Twice actually. But the first time was on board The Tigress in the middle of the stramash, so that hardly counts.” His mood lightened as he warmed to the subject of Virginia Whitebridge.
“Tell me about the second time,” she pressed.
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He gently rocked side to side, smiling at the fire as if revisiting a pleasant memory. “She um…she held my hand while the doctor stitched me up.”
“Were you that afraid?”
“Dinnae be daft,” he said, offended.
“Then why did she hold your hand?”
“Auntie Flora made her hold my hand and talk to me, distract me so I wouldnae dunt Dr. Farquhar on the head.” He turned and complained, “Did ye ken that bastard scalped me while I wasnae looking?”
“You mean, while you were looking at Miss Virginia,” she teased. Pink patches bloomed on his naked cheeks. How often had his blush gone unnoticed before having his beard removed? She sipped her tea and motioned for Magnus to try his. “You know, maybe Miss Virginia is waiting for you to call on her.”
“I cannae.”
“Why?”
Magnus rolled his eyes and pointed to his face.
“I don’t understand.”
“I need to wait until it grows. I look better with it.”
Caya sat back in her chair. Why on earth would he want to hide his handsome face behind—?
“When was the last time you shaved?”
He shrugged. “I cannae say as I’ve ever scraped my face.”
“Have you seen your reflection recently?”
He squinted a suspicious eye at her as if she had it in mind to lay some sort of trap.
Caya grabbed his hand, yanked him to his feet, and dragged him out of the kitchen.
“Cousin, where are you taking me?” he asked, stumbling through the house after her. When she got to the staircase, he resisted. “I’ve seen the second floor.”
“Follow me,” she commanded.
After much tugging and cajoling up the stairs, she shoved the monolith into her room and positioned him directly in front of her mirror.
“There now. Look at yourself.”
Magnus stood transfixed, staring at the stranger in the glass. He must not have seen himself in years.
“Do you still think you look better with your beard?”
He turned his head to one side, then the other. “I’ll be damned.”
“You’ll be dead if you dinnae take yourself oot of my wife’s boudoir.” Declan stood in the doorway, legs spread wide and arms akimbo, looking both angry and dumbfounded. “I love you, well, cousin, but Caya is my wife. I’m no’ sharing her. You’ll have to find your own woman.”
Magnus tore himself away from his reflection and lurched toward Declan. “I came to ask you, have you had any dreams about me, man?”
Declan relaxed his stance but made no response.
“I ken you had the dream about Alex and Lucy having a bairnie, and then you dreamed Caya was your wife…” He swallowed audibly. “So, I was wondering, did you dream anything of me?”
Magnus waited, hope-filled eyes fixed on Declan. But her husband didn’t blink or flinch. He didn’t move a muscle.
At last, Declan swallowed and shook his head. “No. Sorry. Nae dreams.”
The big man gave him a faint smile and nodded. “I see. Nae worries,” he said, his voice clipped and low. “I’ll be off.” He slipped out of the room and barreled down the staircase.
“Husband?” Declan wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Why did you lie to Magnus?”
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