The Bonny Bride

Though Harris continued to stare at the book, his ears reddened. “Should I not practice my lessons, too?” he asked innocently.

“Lessons? Ah, yer charm lessons.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Harris he was already a mite too charming for his own good—or hers. Instead she spoke tartly. “The most important lesson I can teach ye about flattery is don’t lay it on too thick.”

“‘He lived long and happily with Rowena,”’ Jenny read about Wilfred of Ivanhoe, “‘for they were attached to each other by bonds of early affection and they loved each other the more from recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union.”’

The evening light was quickly fading and Jenny wanted to finish the book before she went to bed. Harris had promised they could start Waverley the next day.

“‘Yet it would be inquiring too curiously to ask whether the recollection of Rebecca’s beauty and magna…magnan…”’

“Magnanimity.”

“‘Magnanimity,”’ Jenny repeated, “‘did not recur to his mind more frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have approved.”’

She read the final paragraph without further prompting from Harris. Then Jenny closed the cover with a thud of triumph.

“It was a bonny story,” she said. “Except that Ivanhoe should have married Rebecca.”

Harris cast her a sidelong glance, one brow arched expressively.

“He should,” she insisted. “There was more between Sir Wilfred and Rebecca. Mind how she nursed him after Ashby and how he fought the Templar to save her from burning at the stake?”

The lilt of music and laughter drifted back from the foredeck. Off watch, the crewmen often gathered there in the evenings to tell stories, sing and drink their watered-down rum.

Harris nodded in the direction of the forecastle. “Care to go up and join in the festivities?”

Flushed with the exhilaration of finishing her second book, Jenny accepted the invitation eagerly. She and Harris made their way forward and hovered on the fringes of the gathering. The sailors sat or stood in a rough circle, a few lounging against the rails, some perched in the rigging.

The air throbbed with an infectious, rollicking beat. Callused palms clapped together. Bare feet slapped against the planks of the deck. Wooden spoons drummed a tattoo on the lids of the bilge barrels. Above the chorus of deep male voices piped the spritely trill of a tin whistle. Jenny recognized the tune but not the words, which recounted the charms of the women in various ports of call. She soon found herself clapping in time to the music. The singing ended with a loud, joyous whoop.

“Chisholm! Miss Lennox! Come join us,” called the burly boatswain. With a flick of his thumb, he motioned a young seaman to vacate his seat on a sawed-off cask so Jenny could sit down. “We’ll mind our language, ma’am,” he assured her.

“Pay me no mind.” She waved away all worries of propriety. “I’ve seven brothers, so I’m used to the way men go on.”

As if taking Jenny’s reply as his cue, Tom Nicholson raised the tin whistle to his lips and began to blow another rousing tune. One of the many Irish fighting songs, it gradually picked up a lusty chorus. Several similar songs followed. Then someone called for a jig. The apprentice boy obliged by piping up a lively air. Two young crewmen were pushed into the midst of the circle. After an awkward start, they soon picked up the rhythm and broke into a nimble step.

One of the dancers reached down and caught Jenny by the hand. Hauling her to her feet, he began to spin her about the deck in time to the exuberant music. She’d only danced once before—a few tentative steps at a cousin’s wedding. This was altogether different. Her feet moved over the gently swaying deck with an impetuous ease all their own. The sweet, vibrant music pulsed in her veins. Her partner whirled her off into another pair of arms.

A hectic flush crept into Jenny’s cheeks. She spun away to a third partner and a fourth. Strands of her hair escaped their confining pins, as though anxious to take part in the revelry. She could only toss her wayward curls and laugh, delighting in the wild joy of the moment as the music built towards its feverish climax. The crewmen greeted her performance with noisy approval, clapping and whistling.

Laughing with what little breath she had left, Jenny subsided dizzily against her partner.

“Roderick Douglas won’t care how well ye read, when ye can dance like that, lass.” Warm with admiration, Harris’s deep voice murmured in her ear.

Something told Jenny she should pull away, with a sharp rebuke to Harris Chisholm for holding her in so familiar a fashion. But she dared not let go. She was off balance. It would be too easy to fall. So she lingered in his arms longer than was seemly, anchored by his strength. Clinging to him for the few steps it took to reach her seat, she collapsed onto her improvised stool.

Some remnant of giddiness left from the dancing must have possessed her, for she slid over, patting the lid of the barrel. “There’s room for two,” she said in a breathless rush.

Without a word, Harris dropped down beside her.

High spirits exhausted, the crew’s music slowed and softened. Tom Nicholson gave his tin whistle a rest. One of the men sang a mournful, meandering ballad about an ill-fated cattle raid. Then three of the lads joined in close harmony on “Annie Laurie.” Until that night, Harris had given the extravagant love protestations of Robert Burns a rather cynical reception. The pleasant recollection of hours spent with Jenny and the unsettling awareness of her hip pressing against his gave him a new perspective.

“‘For bonnie Annie Laurie, I’ll lay me down and die.”’

Suddenly Harris could imagine what it must be like to feel that way about a woman. He wasn’t sure he cared for the idea, though. It was tantamount to putting a loaded musket into a woman’s hands and offering his heart for target practice. What if the fickle, perfidious creature pulled the trigger?

“Will you give us a song, Miss Lennox?” one of the men asked at the conclusion of “Annie Laurie.” “There’s some just don’t sound right unless they’re sung by a woman.”

“Aye, like ‘Barbrie Allen,”’ another crewman piped up.

“Nah, not that one.” The boatswain pretended to blubber into his handkerchief. “It always sets me bawlin’. Boohoo-hoo!”

“I’ll go easy on yer tender heart,” Jenny assured the boatswain. Laughter bubbled musically beneath her words. “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.