A Midwinter visitation

Midwinter greetings to you! Daughter of the Sea opens on Midwinter’s Day when Effie rescues a baby and a basket that she spots floating out to sea. A year later a visitor arrives on Midwinter’s Night. Read on to discover the first encounter between Effie and Lachlan.

‘It’s late,’ Effie said cautiously. ‘Do you need some help?’

He raised his head and stared at her with dark-brown eyes flecked with the glass-green hue of a winter sea. Effie’s heart stopped beating then sped up to double time.

‘I come to speak of a child.’

The stranger’s accent bore a touch of Scottish with a hint of something from further away at the edge. His voice was low and slow and made Effie think of cowrieshells and surging tides. The tone sent ripples undulating up and down her spine and spreading out along her limbs, but his words made her belly clench.

‘Are you from the Parish Overseers Committee?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

The man gave a swift bow and stared at Effie. ‘I am not from any committee, Effie Cropton.’

‘Then of which child would you be speaking?’ Effie asked. She wondered how he knew her name if he had not come in any official capacity.

‘I speak of the child who possesses a sealskin.’ He gestured to the fur draped across his shoulder. His pupils grew darker and larger and when he spoke next it was with a commanding tone.

‘That child is mine.’

Effie’s hands tightened on the frame. No one had come forward to claim the girl in a year and now someone appeared in such outlandish garb under cover of night. She wished she were not alone. She wished that Alice – or better still, Walter – was at her side.

‘And who are you?’ Effie asked.

‘My name is Lachlan.’ He removed his hat and shook out thick, dark hair, the same colour as the fur, before bowing gracefully once again. If he thought such pretty manners would appease Effie, he was about to find otherwise.

‘I’ll need to see some papers,’ Effie said. She folded her arms. ‘Who sent you? How did you know she was here?’

‘No one sent me. I came myself. You ask a lot of questions, Effie Cropton, so here is one for you. Where is my daughter?’

‘How do I know she is yours?’ Effie said. She locked her knees to prevent her legs from shaking and stood tall. And it’s Mrs Cropton, if you please. I have no proof you have any claim over her. Come back tomorrow.’

She bit off her words, swallowing her breath and waiting for his response. The man held her gaze. A shiver ran down Effie’s spine at the intensity of his expression. She had stood up to him and yet he didn’t appear angry.

‘Look at me, Mrs Cropton, and then look at my daughter and say we are not kin.’

She couldn’t deny it. His features were the same shape as the girl’s with narrow lips that were deeply cleft, a straight nose and the same intense expression in the dark eyes. He was perhaps thirty, or a little over, with small lines at the corners of his eyes and around his lips. His eyes suited his age more, looking less uncannily ancient than they did in a child’s face, but they still made Effie shiver.

‘You’ve waited a pretty amount of time to claim her, Mr Lachlan.’ Effie folded her arms, blocking the doorway. Her heart thundered, though whether from fear or because of his captivating eyes, she could not tell.

‘Just Lachlan will do, if you please,’ he said.

He scowled. Even with his face crumpled in frustration he was exceedingly handsome. More so than John had been. More than any man Effie knew.

‘I would have come sooner had it been in my power. I had no choice but to wait.’

Something in his tone caught Effie’s heart. There was sorrow beneath the frustration. She felt herself growing sympathetic, which was dangerous.

‘I must take her tonight. The Midwinter tide turns and I cannot stay longer.’

Effie looked him up and down. As well as the heavy coat, he wore trousers of black moleskin and boots like the ones worn by the fishermen in the village.

‘Do you have a ship waiting?’ Effie asked.

He laughed unexpectedly, but his eyes remained serious. ‘Something like that. Please give me my child.’

The children had not woken at the sound of voices. The wind was bitter and as she opened the door a little more it stoked the coals in the grate, causing shadows to dance over the ceiling.

‘Can’t you come back in the morning? She’ll be sleeping now.’

‘She isn’t.’ He spoke with absolute conviction that made Effie frown in annoyance.

He had no idea how long the children had been asleep. Following the excitement of Walter’s attention, the girl had taken a long time to settle, and Jack had woken as soon as she had dropped off. It had taken over an hour for them to finally submit to tiredness. It had been a difficult evening. She glanced over her shoulder and as she moved, Lachlan ducked and slipped past her to the right and into the house with a swiftness she did not expect.

Effie had seen mild-tempered bitches snap at a hand that threatened their litter and now she understood why. The protective urge rose inside her. She followed Lachlan with an exclamation of fury and strode up to him, brandishing her finger in his face. Her hand was shaking. Only extreme anger at his invasion gave her the courage to confront a man such as he.

‘How dare you force your way in here! Get out of my house!’

‘Not without my daughter.’ He folded his arms and placed his feet apart. His bearing and manner suggested he was used to giving orders rather than receiving them.

She glared at him and mimicked his stance. Anger and fear made her shake and her heart thumped so loudly she thought the sound might deafen her. Her eyes darted round the room, looking for anything she could defend herself with if necessary. They fell on the vegetable knife draining beside the sink. Lachlan followed her gaze and frowned.

‘I mean you no harm.’ He dropped his hands to his sides and held them palm up, stepping back.

‘I shouldna’ have done that. I’m no’ so used to polite company as I should be. I just want to see her. I’ve travelled a long way.’The Scottish lilt was more pronounced. How far had he come? Then again, how far would Effie go to find Jack if he were taken from her. She unfolded her arms.

‘If you disturb her she won’t sleep again tonight.’

‘She’s awake. Go and check if you don’t believe me.’

His voice held a note of authority. Reluctantly, Effie opened the bedroom door. Light from the moon streamed in, illuminating the corner where the cot was. Jack lay sprawled on his back, arms stretched above his head but, sure enough, the girl was peering between the bars with sleep-bleary eyes. She babbled something incomprehensible.

‘Hello, chick,’ Effie whispered. ‘Everything is all right. Mama is here. We have a visitor.’

The girl nodded slowly whilst yawning. Effie cradled her close. Her eyes pricked at the idea she would have to say farewell to the girl she had grown to care for.

‘Does it have to be now?’ she whispered against the girl’s head. She closed the door softly behind her so as not to disturb Jack.

Upon seeing the girl Lachlan’s face lit with relief and joy. Some of the lines around his eyes and jaw smoothed out. He held his arms out and the girl leaned towards him, but as Effie took her closer, the child whimpered and burrowed down against Effie’s breast.

‘Hush, chick,’ Effie soothed. ‘This is your papa, come to see you.’

She looked at Lachlan over the top of the girl’s head. He couldn’t take his gaze from her. There was such adoration in his eyes that Effie was no longer in any doubt that this was his child. She needed no papers from the authorities or any other proof. A manwho looked at the girl in that way couldn’t be anyone other than her father. Their eyes were so similar and the expression uncannily alike. His were a much deeper brown, bordering on black, but their expression was so similar Effie could not deny they were father and daughter. She slipped closer and motioned for Lachlan to touch the girl. He reached out a hand hesitantly then withdrew it.

‘Would you like to hold her?’ Effie asked.

He looked uncertain. ‘May I?’

Effie gave him a small smile. ‘She’s your daughter; of course you can.’

With gentle movements unexpected in a man of his size, he eased his arms around the child, brushing against Effie as he did, and lifted her free. The girl looked infinitely smaller in his broad hands. He held her awkwardly as if he had no idea what to do with her. It struck Effie that most likely he didn’t. She felt a rush of sympathy that he had lost his child and been searching for so long.

‘Put your hand here,’ she instructed, motioning towards him. ‘And the other there. That’s right.’

Lachlan bent his head close to the child’s and spoke in a low, deep whisper into her hair. Effie didn’t understand the words. A Scottish dialect, she presumed, but it was a tone Effie had heard Walter use to calm his gelding when something spooked it. Perhaps he worked with animals. The girl’s body relaxed and she leaned against him, but she didn’t put her arms about his neck as she did with Effie or Alice. He buried his head in her embrace then looked up sharply, a shocked expression on his face.

‘You gave her milk. Your milk?’

Effie nodded. ‘Of course. She was famished when I found her, poor mite.’

Lachlan ruffled his hand through his hair and gave Effie a rueful look. ‘Do you realise the bond you created? No matter. There is nothing that can be done now to undo that.’

‘And I could do nothing else when I found her,’ Effie said, jutting her jaw out. ‘Do you know how I found her? Wrapped in a sealskin and naked as the day she was born. She could have frozen to death.’

She held her hands out. ‘Give her back to me, if you please.’

Lachlan surrendered the girl. Effie tried not to feel triumphant when she immediately slipped her arms about Effie’s neck, holding on tightly as if she would never let go. Effie avoided Lachlan’s eyes, not wanting to appear mocking.

‘Mama?’ the girl crooned.

The girl had only begun speaking in the past fortnight and every time she called Effie that, Effie’s heart swelled with fierce love. Lachlan looked as if he had been struck across the face.

‘She calls you Mother.’ His voice was a harsh whisper of betrayal. Effie floundered.

‘I’m sorry. She’s been mine for a year. I’ve raised her with my son.’

Lachlan’s expression became warmer. ‘You did everything for the best of reasons.’

He stepped close and put his hand on the child’s cheek. She stared at him with the same dark eyes. His mouth twisted downwards and he looked so careworn that Effie had to resist the urge to offer consolation.

‘Put her back in her bed,’ he murmured. ‘I shallna’ take her tonight.’

Effie slipped into the bedroom and laid the girl down. She straightened Jack’s arms and tucked the blankets around them both. She watched for a few moments while the girl’s eyes drooped and she fell asleep. Effie kissed her fingers and put them to each child’s cheek in turn.

When she returned, Lachlan was standing in the centre of the room and looking about him with interest. Effie lifted her chin and stared at him. His clothes were good quality, for all that they were plain. Maybe he was used to grander surroundings than a two-room cottage. Effie’s furniture might be old, the crockery mismatched and the rug shabby, but the house was clean and neat. He would find nothing to criticise.

‘Do you live here alone?’ he asked. There was curiosity in his voice rather than judgement.

‘With my son. And your daughter,’ Effie added.

‘Where is your son’s father? Do you have a husband?’

Effie gestured to the black skirt she wore. ‘My husband drowned in a shipwreck. Almost a year to the day.’ She blinked as grief welled up, fresh and raw.

Lachlan’s eyes narrowed then filled with sympathy. ‘In foreign parts? He travelled far?’

An odd question but Effie answered it anyway. ‘No, barely out of harbour from Whitby.’

‘Ah. My condolences. My wife also…’ Lachlan tailed off and his face creased with visible evidence of deep sorrow.

Effie recalled Walter’s report of a crack in the hull of the Serenity cause by some large object. The vessel carrying the child and her mother must have been in the same vicinity for the basket to float towards Allendale Head. Perhaps both ships had fallen foul of whatever it had been.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I never understood how the babe came to be in the sea. Would you like some tea?’

Lachlan lifted his chin. ‘Thank you, but no. I am already under enough obligation to you for what you have done for my child.’

‘It’s only tea. There is no obligation,’ Effie said. ‘You just looked cold.’

She glanced at the seal fur that was draped over one arm. It matched the one in which she had found the girl wrapped and wondered where they had got them. Perhaps he

was a seal hunter.

‘Your daughter had a fur like that,’ she said.

‘Had?’ He leaned forward urgently. ‘What happened to it?’

‘Nothing. I kept it safe,’ Effie answered, slightly taken aback at the alarm in his voice.

‘Good.’ He pulled a stool back and sat at the table, resting his hands together on the edge.

‘Mrs Cropton, we have a predicament. You have nursed my child and looked after her. You took her in and gave her your milk. You have cared for her for a year and she calls you Mother.’

He rubbed his eyes with his fingers. They were long and slender and looked as if they had never seen hard labour. He gave Effie a wry smile. ‘You have as much claim to her as I do.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Effie repeated. ‘I did what I thought was best.’

‘And you did it well. You love her, don’t you?’

Effie nodded.

Lachlan exhaled loud and long. ‘You had no understanding of the bonds you were weaving or the obligations you have created but I cannot take her from you. If I leave her, will you continue to care for her as you have done?’

Effie hid her elation. ‘Of course I will.’

‘What have you named her?’

‘I…’

Effie felt a blush rising to her cheeks. She’d been defensive and accusatory, but now had to admit that a year had passed without her naming Lachlan’s daughter.

‘Nothing seemed to suit her,’ she admitted.

Lachlan didn’t seem angry at this but his shoulders tensed. ‘Then you have not had her baptised, I assume?’

‘No.’ Effie met his eyes boldly, staring into the inscrutable depths. If he condemned her for this he would not be the first. ‘I’m not a churchgoer myself and it didn’t seem right without knowing who she belonged to.’

‘That is well. My people are also not of that faith. I would not have another barricade set between us.’ He gestured to the fur around his shoulders.

‘Where is her skin? I would like to see it before I leave.’

It was an odd request. Effie narrowed her eyes suspiciously, wondering if he planned to make off with it. Sealskins were prized but this fur was so small it couldn’t be particularly valuable. The basket was where she had left it a year ago on top of the wardrobe in the bedroom. It had continued to disintegrate and was now little more than a pile of loosely woven stalks and reeds. By the light from the open door she stood on tiptoe and pulled it down, trying to keep silent so as not to wake the children. She placed the remains of the basket on the kitchen table and unfolded the fur. Dust filled the air. Lachlan ran his hand over the pelt and closed his eyes. Effie remembered the softness and how it had felt warm under her palm even when cold and damp. She stroked the edge with her fingertip. In the bedroom, the girl stirred and whimpered softly as if she were dreaming. Lachlan looked round at the sound. He crept to the cot and held his hand out over the sleeping children then withdrew it slowly. He bowed his head. Effie left the room, not wanting to intrude. When Lachlan emerged, he walked to Effie and tilted her chin back. His hands were so cold the shock of it almost outweighed the surprise of being touched by a stranger. He regarded her seriously and she suddenly felt very young.

‘Effie Cropton, will you keep my child safe?’

She nodded. ‘I will.’

Lachlan took her right hand. He pressed something cool and hard into her palm and curled her fingers round it. Effie opened her hand to discover a large pearl. She blinked in surprise. It must be worth double the sum she received from the Poor Committee each quarter year.‘We have a compact, you and I,’ he said. ‘I will return at Midsummer’s Night on the turn of the tide and I’ll bring you another pearl in payment.’

Lachlan paused at the door and looked back at Effie, dark eyes flashing.

‘Her name is Morna.’

Effie clutched the pearl and watched as he slipped away. He headed away from the village, along the beach towards the brig. The moonlight followed him, but when the shore curved away the shadows claimed him and he was lost from sight.

If you enjoyed this extract and want to read on, the book is available as ebook and in print. getbook.at/DaughteroftheSea