Beyond the Sea by Melissa Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

Macleans sailed for Tiree some time ago. No doubt, as a result, we will set off for the outer-lying islands, but without more detailed knowledge of exactly where they are to be found, any mission to locate them would doubtless fail.
    And so, for the moment, we are taking in the weather and scenery. It is a wild beauty here on Mull, a ragged splendour: crags, moorland and rocks, sea and mountains. One minute we are bathed in sunshine, the next there is cloud and then rain, the elements often following rapidly one after the other. The sunshine casts a candour, a beauty over everything. But when the weather turns sour, the cold mist and drizzle make this place utterly dreary, like quite the end of the earth. ‘Dreich’ is the word Duncan uses for it. And it is as perfectly miserable sounding as that which it describes.
    But I must not fall into a black state of mind. Although I fear it is too late for that. Before we came below deck to sleep, as we looked out over the deserted darkness of the ocean, Duncan told me of a famous shipwreck in these parts, a wind-battered remnant of the Spanish Armada, Florencia , laden with gold and silver coin. When the Spanish double-crossed the Scots who had come to their aid, the Florencia mysteriously blew up and its cargo of coin sank into the silt of the sea bed and was never recovered. Neither were the crew. I looked at the impenetrable darkness of the water once more. It was like a veil drawn over the past, the carcasses of ships, coins, and the bodies of countless men strewn about its bed. Is that my destiny, I wondered then, floating here and there on the tide, unbound to any place, fighting and suppressing rebellion? I risk death here for a commander I feel no strong allegiance to and leave behind what has grown to be most dear to me.
    I felt a hollowness inside me then. This place stirs it in me, I am sure. It has a wildness being so far north, subject to its own reason, its own remote rhythm. And that is in part due to the sea and its dominance. It is more master here than Cromwell, that is for sure.
    I am haunted by what you told me before I left and I am only sorry that I was rough and that I did not speak the words that you longed for and deserved to hear. It pains me to have parted from you in such a way. But I trust now that we will return to England sooner than I had hoped. Then I will see you again and will speak all as I should have done the last time we were together.
    Until then
    I am your
    Edward
    AFTER SHE HAD finished reading, Freya took a large mouthful of wine. She still couldn’t quite believe that these letters had survived. And the contents, as MacCallister had suggested, were equally astonishing. A dangerous yet fruitless voyage, into the wind and sea-lashed wilds of the north, in pursuit of a vanished adversary. It was a journey that would have been frustrating at the best of times, but even more so for a soldier battling his own stained soul and an ever-quickening desire for home.
    As Freya turned the page to continue, the telephone rang. It was shrill, invasive in the quiet of the night. How appropriate, Freya thought. It wouldn’t be Marta (she had already spoken to her that evening), so that left her mother, Joan. For a moment she thought about ignoring it. But it would be better to get it over with and cut the call short. It was late, after all. Freya sighed, feeling tired at the prospect of the conversation. She grabbed the phone and answered it as she wandered back to bed.
    â€˜Hello darling, how
are
you?’ Joan always got in the first words of any call, even when she was the one ringing.
    â€˜I’m fine thanks, Mum. Everything’s okay.’
    As Freya tried and failed, as always, to reassure her mother, she found herself telling her instead about Edward’s letters in a bottle, their discovery at the Torran Rocks, and their final journey to Edinburgh.
    After all, it gave them something else, besides her mental health, to talk