The Bonny Bride. Deborah Hale

“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